1 Guile NEWS --- history of user-visible changes. -*- text -*-
2 Copyright (C) 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
3 See the end for copying conditions.
5 Please send Guile bug reports to bug-guile@gnu.org.
7 Changes since Guile 1.4:
9 * Changes to the distribution
11 ** New modules (oop goops) etc
18 (oop goops active-slot)
19 (oop goops composite-slot)
21 plus some GOOPS utility modules have been added.
23 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
25 ** GOOPS has been merged into Guile
27 The Guile Object Oriented Programming System has been integrated into
32 (use-modules (oop goops))
34 access GOOPS bindings.
36 We're now ready to try some basic GOOPS functionality.
40 (define-method (+ (x <string>) (y <string>))
44 (+ "abc" "de") --> "abcde"
48 (define-class <2D-vector> ()
49 (x #:init-value 0 #:accessor x-component #:init-keyword #:x)
50 (y #:init-value 0 #:accessor y-component #:init-keyword #:y))
52 (define-method write ((obj <2D-vector>) port)
53 (display (format #f "<~S, ~S>" (x-component obj) (y-component obj))
56 (define v (make <2D-vector> #:x 3 #:y 4))
59 (define-method + ((x <2D-vector>) (y <2D-vector>))
61 #:x (+ (x-component x) (x-component y))
62 #:y (+ (y-component x) (y-component y))))
66 Asking for the type of an object
68 (class-of v) --> #<<class> <2D-vector> 40241ac0>
69 <2D-vector> --> #<<class> <2D-vector> 40241ac0>
70 (class-of 1) --> #<<class> <integer> 401b2a98>
71 <integer> --> #<<class> <integer> 401b2a98>
73 (is-a? v <2D-vector>) --> #t
75 See further in the GOOPS tutorial available in the guile-doc
76 distribution in info (goops.info) and texinfo formats.
78 ** It's now possible to create modules with controlled environments
82 (use-modules (ice-9 safe))
83 (define m (make-safe-module))
84 ;;; m will now be a module containing only a safe subset of R5RS
85 (eval '(+ 1 2) m) --> 3
86 (eval 'load m) --> ERROR: Unbound variable: load
88 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
90 ** The semantics of guardians have changed.
92 The changes are for the most part compatible. An important criterion
93 was to keep the typical usage of guardians as simple as before, but to
94 make the semantics safer and (as a result) more useful.
96 *** All objects returned from guardians are now properly alive.
98 It is now guaranteed that any object referenced by an object returned
99 from a guardian is alive. It's now impossible for a guardian to
100 return a "contained" object before its "containing" object.
102 One incompatible (but probably not very important) change resulting
103 from this is that it is no longer possible to guard objects that
104 indirectly reference themselves (i.e. are parts of cycles). If you do
105 so accidentally, you'll get a warning.
107 *** There are now two types of guardians: greedy and sharing.
109 If you call (make-guardian #t) or just (make-guardian), you'll get a
110 greedy guardian, and for (make-guardian #f) a sharing guardian.
112 Greedy guardians are the default because they are more "defensive".
113 You can only greedily guard an object once. If you guard an object
114 more than once, once in a greedy guardian and the rest of times in
115 sharing guardians, then it is guaranteed that the object won't be
116 returned from sharing guardians as long as it is greedily guarded
119 Guardians returned by calls to `make-guardian' can now take one more
120 optional parameter, which says whether to throw an error in case an
121 attempt is made to greedily guard an object that is already greedily
122 guarded. The default is true, i.e. throw an error. If the parameter
123 is false, the guardian invocation returns #t if guarding was
124 successful and #f if it wasn't.
126 Also, since greedy guarding is, in effect, a side-effecting operation
127 on objects, a new function is introduced: `destroy-guardian!'.
128 Invoking this function on a guardian renders it unoperative and, if
129 the guardian is greedy, clears the "greedily guarded" property of the
130 objects that were guarded by it, thus undoing the side effect.
132 Note that all this hair is hardly very important, since guardian
133 objects are usually permanent.
135 ** Escape procedures created by call-with-current-continuation now
136 accept any number of arguments, as required by R5RS.
138 ** New function `make-object-property'
140 This function returns a new `procedure with setter' P that can be used
141 to attach a property to objects. When calling P as
145 where `obj' is any kind of object, it attaches `val' to `obj' in such
146 a way that it can be retrieved by calling P as
150 This function will replace procedure properties, symbol properties and
151 source properties eventually.
153 ** Module (ice-9 optargs) now uses keywords instead of `#&'.
155 Instead of #&optional, #&key, etc you should now use #:optional,
156 #:key, etc. Since #:optional is a keyword, you can write it as just
157 :optional when (read-set! keywords 'prefix) is active.
159 The old reader syntax `#&' is still supported, but deprecated. It
160 will be removed in the next release.
162 ** Backward incompatible change: eval EXP ENVIRONMENT-SPECIFIER
164 `eval' is now R5RS, that is it takes two arguments.
165 The second argument is an environment specifier, i.e. either
167 (scheme-report-environment 5)
169 (interaction-environment)
175 ** New define-module option: pure
177 Tells the module system not to include any bindings from the root
182 (define-module (totally-empty-module)
185 ** New define-module option: export NAME1 ...
187 Export names NAME1 ...
189 This option is required if you want to be able to export bindings from
190 a module which doesn't import one of `define-public' or `export'.
196 :use-module (ice-9 r5rs)
199 ;;; Note that we're pure R5RS below this point!
204 ** Deprecated: scm_make_shared_substring
206 Explicit shared substrings will disappear from Guile.
208 Instead, "normal" strings will be implemented using sharing
209 internally, combined with a copy-on-write strategy.
211 ** Deprecated: scm_read_only_string_p
213 The concept of read-only strings will disappear in next release of
216 ** Deprecated: scm_sloppy_memq, scm_sloppy_memv, scm_sloppy_member
218 Instead, use scm_c_memq or scm_memq, scm_memv, scm_member.
220 ** New function: port? X
222 Returns a boolean indicating whether X is a port. Equivalent to
223 `(or (input-port? X) (output-port? X))'.
225 ** New function: port-for-each proc
227 Apply PROC to each port in the Guile port table in turn. The
228 return value is unspecified.
230 ** New function: dup2 oldfd newfd
232 A simple wrapper for the `dup2' system call. Copies the file
233 descriptor OLDFD to descriptor number NEWFD, replacing the
234 previous meaning of NEWFD. Both OLDFD and NEWFD must be integers.
235 Unlike for dup->fdes or primitive-move->fdes, no attempt is made
236 to move away ports which are using NEWFD\n". The return value is
239 ** New function: close-fdes fd
241 A simple wrapper for the `close' system call. Close file
242 descriptor FD, which must be an integer. Unlike close (*note
243 close: Ports and File Descriptors.), the file descriptor will be
244 closed even if a port is using it. The return value is
247 ** Deprecated: close-all-ports-except. This was intended for closing
248 ports in a child process after a fork, but it has the undesirable side
249 effect of flushing buffers. port-for-each is more flexible.
251 ** The (ice-9 popen) module now attempts to set up file descriptors in
252 the child process from the current Scheme ports, instead of using the
253 current values of file descriptors 0, 1, and 2 in the parent process.
255 ** Removed function: builtin-weak-bindings
257 There is no such concept as a weak binding any more.
259 ** Removed constants: bignum-radix
261 * Changes to the gh_ interface
263 * Changes to the scm_ interface
265 ** New function: scm_init_guile ()
267 In contrast to scm_boot_guile, scm_init_guile will return normally
268 after initializing Guile. It is not available on all systems, tho.
270 ** New functions: scm_str2symbol, scm_mem2symbol
272 The function scm_str2symbol takes a const char* pointing to a zero-terminated
273 field of characters and creates a scheme symbol object from that C string.
274 The function scm_mem2symbol takes a const char* and a number of characters and
275 creates a symbol from the characters in that memory area.
277 ** New functions: scm_primitive_make_property
278 scm_primitive_property_ref
279 scm_primitive_property_set_x
280 scm_primitive_property_del_x
282 These functions implement a new way to deal with object properties.
283 See libguile/properties.c for their documentation.
285 ** New function: scm_done_free (long size)
287 This function is the inverse of scm_done_malloc. Use it to report the
288 amount of smob memory you free. The previous method, which involved
289 calling scm_done_malloc with negative argument, was somewhat
290 unintuitive (and is still available, of course).
292 ** New function: scm_c_memq (SCM obj, SCM list)
294 This function provides a fast C level alternative for scm_memq for the case
295 that the list parameter is known to be a proper list. The function is a
296 replacement for scm_sloppy_memq, but is stricter in its requirements on its
297 list input parameter, since for anything else but a proper list the function's
298 behaviour is undefined - it may even crash or loop endlessly. Further, for
299 the case that the object is not found in the list, scm_c_memq returns #f which
300 is similar to scm_memq, but different from scm_sloppy_memq's behaviour.
302 ** New functions: scm_remember_upto_here_1, scm_remember_upto_here_2,
303 scm_remember_upto_here
305 These functions replace the function scm_remember.
307 ** Deprecated function: scm_remember
309 Use one of the new functions scm_remember_upto_here_1,
310 scm_remember_upto_here_2 or scm_remember_upto_here instead.
312 ** New global variable scm_gc_running_p introduced.
314 Use this variable to find out if garbage collection is being executed. Up to
315 now applications have used scm_gc_heap_lock to test if garbage collection was
316 running, which also works because of the fact that up to know only the garbage
317 collector has set this variable. But, this is an implementation detail that
318 may change. Further, scm_gc_heap_lock is not set throughout gc, thus the use
319 of this variable is (and has been) not fully safe anyway.
321 ** New macros: SCM_BITVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_MAX_LENGTH
323 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
325 ** New macros: SCM_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_CCLO_LENGTH, SCM_STACK_LENGTH,
326 SCM_STRING_LENGTH, SCM_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
327 SCM_BITVECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_VECTOR_LENGTH.
329 Use these instead of SCM_LENGTH.
331 ** New macros: SCM_SET_CONTINUATION_LENGTH, SCM_SET_STRING_LENGTH,
332 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_LENGTH, SCM_SET_VECTOR_LENGTH, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_LENGTH,
333 SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_LENGTH
335 Use these instead of SCM_SETLENGTH
337 ** New macros: SCM_STRING_CHARS, SCM_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_CCLO_BASE,
338 SCM_VECTOR_BASE, SCM_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_BITVECTOR_BASE, SCM_COMPLEX_MEM,
341 Use these instead of SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS, SCM_ROCHARS, SCM_ROUCHARS or
344 ** New macros: SCM_SET_BIGNUM_BASE, SCM_SET_STRING_CHARS,
345 SCM_SET_SYMBOL_CHARS, SCM_SET_UVECTOR_BASE, SCM_SET_BITVECTOR_BASE,
348 Use these instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
350 ** New macro: SCM_BITVECTOR_P
352 ** New macro: SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X
354 Use instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
356 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_OUTOFRANGE, SCM_NALLOC, SCM_HUP_SIGNAL,
357 SCM_INT_SIGNAL, SCM_FPE_SIGNAL, SCM_BUS_SIGNAL, SCM_SEGV_SIGNAL,
358 SCM_ALRM_SIGNAL, SCM_GC_SIGNAL, SCM_TICK_SIGNAL, SCM_SIG_ORD,
359 SCM_ORD_SIG, SCM_NUM_SIGS, SCM_SYMBOL_SLOTS, SCM_SLOTS, SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP,
360 SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR, SCM_FREEP, SCM_NFREEP, SCM_CHARS, SCM_UCHARS,
361 SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING, SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING_COPY,
362 SCM_VALIDATE_NULLORROSTRING_COPY, SCM_ROLENGTH, SCM_LENGTH, SCM_HUGE_LENGTH,
363 SCM_SUBSTRP, SCM_SUBSTR_STR, SCM_SUBSTR_OFFSET, SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR,
364 SCM_ROSTRINGP, SCM_RWSTRINGP, SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING, SCM_ROCHARS,
365 SCM_ROUCHARS, SCM_SETLENGTH, SCM_SETCHARS, SCM_LENGTH_MAX, SCM_GC8MARKP,
366 SCM_SETGC8MARK, SCM_CLRGC8MARK, SCM_GCTYP16, SCM_GCCDR, SCM_SUBR_DOC
368 Use SCM_ASSERT_RANGE or SCM_VALIDATE_XXX_RANGE instead of SCM_OUTOFRANGE.
369 Use scm_memory_error instead of SCM_NALLOC.
370 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_SLOPPY_STRINGP.
371 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_STRINGORSUBSTR.
372 Use SCM_FREE_CELL_P instead of SCM_FREEP/SCM_NFREEP
373 Use a type specific accessor macro instead of SCM_CHARS/SCM_UCHARS.
374 Use a type specific accessor instead of SCM(_|_RO|_HUGE_)LENGTH.
375 Use SCM_VALIDATE_(SYMBOL|STRING) instead of SCM_VALIDATE_ROSTRING.
376 Use SCM_STRING_COERCE_0TERMINATION_X instead of SCM_COERCE_SUBSTR.
377 Use SCM_STRINGP or SCM_SYMBOLP instead of SCM_ROSTRINGP.
378 Use SCM_STRINGP instead of SCM_RWSTRINGP.
379 Use SCM_VALIDATE_STRING instead of SCM_VALIDATE_RWSTRING.
380 Use SCM_STRING_CHARS instead of SCM_ROCHARS.
381 Use SCM_STRING_UCHARS instead of SCM_ROUCHARS.
382 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETLENGTH.
383 Use a type specific setter macro instead of SCM_SETCHARS.
384 Use a type specific length macro instead of SCM_LENGTH_MAX.
385 Use SCM_GCMARKP instead of SCM_GC8MARKP.
386 Use SCM_SETGCMARK instead of SCM_SETGC8MARK.
387 Use SCM_CLRGCMARK instead of SCM_CLRGC8MARK.
388 Use SCM_TYP16 instead of SCM_GCTYP16.
389 Use SCM_CDR instead of SCM_GCCDR.
391 ** Removed function: scm_struct_init
393 ** Removed variable: scm_symhash_dim
395 ** Renamed function: scm_make_cont has been replaced by
396 scm_make_continuation, which has a different interface.
398 ** Deprecated function: scm_call_catching_errors
400 Use scm_catch or scm_lazy_catch from throw.[ch] instead.
402 ** Deprecated function: scm_strhash
404 Use scm_string_hash instead.
406 ** Deprecated function: scm_vector_set_length_x
408 Instead, create a fresh vector of the desired size and copy the contents.
410 ** scm_gensym has changed prototype
412 scm_gensym now only takes one argument.
414 ** New function: scm_gentemp (SCM prefix, SCM obarray)
416 The builtin `gentemp' has now become a primitive.
418 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc7_ssymbol, scm_tc7_msymbol, scm_tcs_symbols,
421 There is now only a single symbol type scm_tc7_symbol.
422 The tag scm_tc7_lvector was not used anyway.
424 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe, scm_set_smob_mfpe.
426 Use scm_make_smob_type and scm_set_smob_XXX instead.
428 ** New function scm_set_smob_apply.
430 This can be used to set an apply function to a smob type.
433 Changes since Guile 1.3.4:
435 * Changes to the distribution
437 ** Trees from nightly snapshots and CVS now require you to run autogen.sh.
439 We've changed the way we handle generated files in the Guile source
440 repository. As a result, the procedure for building trees obtained
441 from the nightly FTP snapshots or via CVS has changed:
442 - You must have appropriate versions of autoconf, automake, and
443 libtool installed on your system. See README for info on how to
444 obtain these programs.
445 - Before configuring the tree, you must first run the script
446 `autogen.sh' at the top of the source tree.
448 The Guile repository used to contain not only source files, written by
449 humans, but also some generated files, like configure scripts and
450 Makefile.in files. Even though the contents of these files could be
451 derived mechanically from other files present, we thought it would
452 make the tree easier to build if we checked them into CVS.
454 However, this approach means that minor differences between
455 developer's installed tools and habits affected the whole team.
456 So we have removed the generated files from the repository, and
457 added the autogen.sh script, which will reconstruct them
461 ** configure now has experimental options to remove support for certain
464 --disable-arrays omit array and uniform array support
465 --disable-posix omit posix interfaces
466 --disable-networking omit networking interfaces
467 --disable-regex omit regular expression interfaces
469 These are likely to become separate modules some day.
471 ** New configure option --enable-debug-freelist
473 This enables a debugging version of SCM_NEWCELL(), and also registers
474 an extra primitive, the setter `gc-set-debug-check-freelist!'.
476 Configure with the --enable-debug-freelist option to enable
477 the gc-set-debug-check-freelist! primitive, and then use:
479 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #t) # turn on checking of the freelist
480 (gc-set-debug-check-freelist! #f) # turn off checking
482 Checking of the freelist forces a traversal of the freelist and
483 a garbage collection before each allocation of a cell. This can
484 slow down the interpreter dramatically, so the setter should be used to
485 turn on this extra processing only when necessary.
487 ** New configure option --enable-debug-malloc
489 Include code for debugging of calls to scm_must_malloc/realloc/free.
493 1. objects freed by scm_must_free has been mallocated by scm_must_malloc
494 2. objects reallocated by scm_must_realloc has been allocated by
496 3. reallocated objects are reallocated with the same what string
498 But, most importantly, it records the number of allocated objects of
499 each kind. This is useful when searching for memory leaks.
501 A Guile compiled with this option provides the primitive
502 `malloc-stats' which returns an alist with pairs of kind and the
503 number of objects of that kind.
505 ** All includes are now referenced relative to the root directory
507 Since some users have had problems with mixups between Guile and
508 system headers, we have decided to always refer to Guile headers via
509 their parent directories. This essentially creates a "private name
510 space" for Guile headers. This means that the compiler only is given
511 -I options for the root build and root source directory.
513 ** Header files kw.h and genio.h have been removed.
515 ** The module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) has been removed.
517 ** New module (ice-9 documentation)
519 Implements the interface to documentation strings associated with
522 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
524 ** New command line option --debug
526 Start Guile with debugging evaluator and backtraces enabled.
528 This is useful when debugging your .guile init file or scripts.
532 Usage: (help NAME) gives documentation about objects named NAME (a symbol)
533 (help REGEXP) ditto for objects with names matching REGEXP (a string)
534 (help ,EXPR) gives documentation for object returned by EXPR
535 (help) gives this text
537 `help' searches among bindings exported from loaded modules, while
538 `apropos' searches among bindings visible from the "current" module.
540 Examples: (help help)
542 (help "output-string")
544 ** `help' and `apropos' now prints full module names
546 ** Dynamic linking now uses libltdl from the libtool package.
548 The old system dependent code for doing dynamic linking has been
549 replaced with calls to the libltdl functions which do all the hairy
552 The major improvement is that you can now directly pass libtool
553 library names like "libfoo.la" to `dynamic-link' and `dynamic-link'
554 will be able to do the best shared library job you can get, via
557 The way dynamic libraries are found has changed and is not really
558 portable across platforms, probably. It is therefore recommended to
559 use absolute filenames when possible.
561 If you pass a filename without an extension to `dynamic-link', it will
562 try a few appropriate ones. Thus, the most platform ignorant way is
563 to specify a name like "libfoo", without any directories and
566 ** Guile COOP threads are now compatible with LinuxThreads
568 Previously, COOP threading wasn't possible in applications linked with
569 Linux POSIX threads due to their use of the stack pointer to find the
570 thread context. This has now been fixed with a workaround which uses
571 the pthreads to allocate the stack.
573 ** New primitives: `pkgdata-dir', `site-dir', `library-dir'
575 ** Positions of erring expression in scripts
577 With version 1.3.4, the location of the erring expression in Guile
578 scipts is no longer automatically reported. (This should have been
579 documented before the 1.3.4 release.)
581 You can get this information by enabling recording of positions of
582 source expressions and running the debugging evaluator. Put this at
583 the top of your script (or in your "site" file):
585 (read-enable 'positions)
586 (debug-enable 'debug)
588 ** Backtraces in scripts
590 It is now possible to get backtraces in scripts.
594 (debug-enable 'debug 'backtrace)
596 at the top of the script.
598 (The first options enables the debugging evaluator.
599 The second enables backtraces.)
601 ** Part of module system symbol lookup now implemented in C
603 The eval closure of most modules is now implemented in C. Since this
604 was one of the bottlenecks for loading speed, Guile now loads code
605 substantially faster than before.
607 ** Attempting to get the value of an unbound variable now produces
608 an exception with a key of 'unbound-variable instead of 'misc-error.
610 ** The initial default output port is now unbuffered if it's using a
611 tty device. Previously in this situation it was line-buffered.
613 ** gc-thunk is deprecated
615 gc-thunk will be removed in next release of Guile. It has been
616 replaced by after-gc-hook.
618 ** New hook: after-gc-hook
620 after-gc-hook takes over the role of gc-thunk. This hook is run at
621 the first SCM_TICK after a GC. (Thus, the code is run at the same
622 point during evaluation as signal handlers.)
624 Note that this hook should be used only for diagnostic and debugging
625 purposes. It is not certain that it will continue to be well-defined
626 when this hook is run in the future.
628 C programmers: Note the new C level hooks scm_before_gc_c_hook,
629 scm_before_sweep_c_hook, scm_after_gc_c_hook.
631 ** Improvements to garbage collector
633 Guile 1.4 has a new policy for triggering heap allocation and
634 determining the sizes of heap segments. It fixes a number of problems
637 1. The new policy can handle two separate pools of cells
638 (2-word/4-word) better. (The old policy would run wild, allocating
639 more and more memory for certain programs.)
641 2. The old code would sometimes allocate far too much heap so that the
642 Guile process became gigantic. The new code avoids this.
644 3. The old code would sometimes allocate too little so that few cells
645 were freed at GC so that, in turn, too much time was spent in GC.
647 4. The old code would often trigger heap allocation several times in a
648 row. (The new scheme predicts how large the segments needs to be
649 in order not to need further allocation.)
651 All in all, the new GC policy will make larger applications more
654 The new GC scheme also is prepared for POSIX threading. Threads can
655 allocate private pools of cells ("clusters") with just a single
656 function call. Allocation of single cells from such a cluster can
657 then proceed without any need of inter-thread synchronization.
659 ** New environment variables controlling GC parameters
661 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE Maximal segment size
664 Allocation of 2-word cell heaps:
666 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_1 Size of initial heap segment in bytes
669 GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1 Minimum number of freed cells at each
670 GC in percent of total heap size
673 Allocation of 4-word cell heaps
674 (used for real numbers and misc other objects):
676 GUILE_INIT_SEGMENT_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2
678 (See entry "Way for application to customize GC parameters" under
679 section "Changes to the scm_ interface" below.)
681 ** Guile now implements reals using 4-word cells
683 This speeds up computation with reals. (They were earlier allocated
684 with `malloc'.) There is still some room for optimizations, however.
686 ** Some further steps toward POSIX thread support have been taken
688 *** Guile's critical sections (SCM_DEFER/ALLOW_INTS)
689 don't have much effect any longer, and many of them will be removed in
693 are only handled at the top of the evaluator loop, immediately after
694 I/O, and in scm_equalp.
696 *** The GC can allocate thread private pools of pairs.
698 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
700 ** close-input-port and close-output-port are now R5RS
702 These procedures have been turned into primitives and have R5RS behaviour.
704 ** New procedure: simple-format PORT MESSAGE ARG1 ...
706 (ice-9 boot) makes `format' an alias for `simple-format' until possibly
707 extended by the more sophisticated version in (ice-9 format)
709 (simple-format port message . args)
710 Write MESSAGE to DESTINATION, defaulting to `current-output-port'.
711 MESSAGE can contain ~A (was %s) and ~S (was %S) escapes. When printed,
712 the escapes are replaced with corresponding members of ARGS:
713 ~A formats using `display' and ~S formats using `write'.
714 If DESTINATION is #t, then use the `current-output-port',
715 if DESTINATION is #f, then return a string containing the formatted text.
716 Does not add a trailing newline."
718 ** string-ref: the second argument is no longer optional.
720 ** string, list->string: no longer accept strings in their arguments,
721 only characters, for compatibility with R5RS.
723 ** New procedure: port-closed? PORT
724 Returns #t if PORT is closed or #f if it is open.
728 The list* functionality is now provided by cons* (SRFI-1 compliant)
730 ** New procedure: cons* ARG1 ARG2 ... ARGn
732 Like `list', but the last arg provides the tail of the constructed list,
733 returning (cons ARG1 (cons ARG2 (cons ... ARGn))).
735 Requires at least one argument. If given one argument, that argument
736 is returned as result.
738 This function is called `list*' in some other Schemes and in Common LISP.
740 ** Removed deprecated: serial-map, serial-array-copy!, serial-array-map!
742 ** New procedure: object-documentation OBJECT
744 Returns the documentation string associated with OBJECT. The
745 procedure uses a caching mechanism so that subsequent lookups are
748 Exported by (ice-9 documentation).
750 ** module-name now returns full names of modules
752 Previously, only the last part of the name was returned (`session' for
753 `(ice-9 session)'). Ex: `(ice-9 session)'.
755 * Changes to the gh_ interface
757 ** Deprecated: gh_int2scmb
759 Use gh_bool2scm instead.
761 * Changes to the scm_ interface
763 ** Guile primitives now carry docstrings!
765 Thanks to Greg Badros!
767 ** Guile primitives are defined in a new way: SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
769 Now Guile primitives are defined using the SCM_DEFINE/SCM_DEFINE1/SCM_PROC
770 macros and must contain a docstring that is extracted into foo.doc using a new
771 guile-doc-snarf script (that uses guile-doc-snarf.awk).
773 However, a major overhaul of these macros is scheduled for the next release of
776 ** Guile primitives use a new technique for validation of arguments
778 SCM_VALIDATE_* macros are defined to ease the redundancy and improve
779 the readability of argument checking.
781 ** All (nearly?) K&R prototypes for functions replaced with ANSI C equivalents.
783 ** New macros: SCM_PACK, SCM_UNPACK
785 Compose/decompose an SCM value.
787 The SCM type is now treated as an abstract data type and may be defined as a
788 long, a void* or as a struct, depending on the architecture and compile time
789 options. This makes it easier to find several types of bugs, for example when
790 SCM values are treated as integers without conversion. Values of the SCM type
791 should be treated as "atomic" values. These macros are used when
792 composing/decomposing an SCM value, either because you want to access
793 individual bits, or because you want to treat it as an integer value.
795 E.g., in order to set bit 7 in an SCM value x, use the expression
797 SCM_PACK (SCM_UNPACK (x) | 0x80)
799 ** The name property of hooks is deprecated.
800 Thus, the use of SCM_HOOK_NAME and scm_make_hook_with_name is deprecated.
802 You can emulate this feature by using object properties.
804 ** Deprecated macros: SCM_INPORTP, SCM_OUTPORTP, SCM_CRDY, SCM_ICHRP,
805 SCM_ICHR, SCM_MAKICHR, SCM_SETJMPBUF, SCM_NSTRINGP, SCM_NRWSTRINGP,
808 These macros will be removed in a future release of Guile.
810 ** The following types, functions and macros from numbers.h are deprecated:
811 scm_dblproc, SCM_UNEGFIXABLE, SCM_FLOBUFLEN, SCM_INEXP, SCM_CPLXP, SCM_REAL,
812 SCM_IMAG, SCM_REALPART, scm_makdbl, SCM_SINGP, SCM_NUM2DBL, SCM_NO_BIGDIG
814 Further, it is recommended not to rely on implementation details for guile's
815 current implementation of bignums. It is planned to replace this
816 implementation with gmp in the future.
818 ** Port internals: the rw_random variable in the scm_port structure
819 must be set to non-zero in any random access port. In recent Guile
820 releases it was only set for bidirectional random-access ports.
822 ** Port internals: the seek ptob procedure is now responsible for
823 resetting the buffers if required. The change was made so that in the
824 special case of reading the current position (i.e., seek p 0 SEEK_CUR)
825 the fport and strport ptobs can avoid resetting the buffers,
826 in particular to avoid discarding unread chars. An existing port
827 type can be fixed by adding something like the following to the
828 beginning of the ptob seek procedure:
830 if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_READ)
831 scm_end_input (object);
832 else if (pt->rw_active == SCM_PORT_WRITE)
833 ptob->flush (object);
835 although to actually avoid resetting the buffers and discard unread
836 chars requires further hacking that depends on the characteristics
839 ** Deprecated functions: scm_fseek, scm_tag
841 These functions are no longer used and will be removed in a future version.
843 ** The scm_sysmissing procedure is no longer used in libguile.
844 Unless it turns out to be unexpectedly useful to somebody, it will be
845 removed in a future version.
847 ** The format of error message strings has changed
849 The two C procedures: scm_display_error and scm_error, as well as the
850 primitive `scm-error', now use scm_simple_format to do their work.
851 This means that the message strings of all code must be updated to use
852 ~A where %s was used before, and ~S where %S was used before.
854 During the period when there still are a lot of old Guiles out there,
855 you might want to support both old and new versions of Guile.
857 There are basically two methods to achieve this. Both methods use
860 AC_CHECK_FUNCS(scm_simple_format)
862 in your configure.in.
864 Method 1: Use the string concatenation features of ANSI C's
869 #ifdef HAVE_SCM_SIMPLE_FORMAT
875 Then represent each of your error messages using a preprocessor macro:
877 #define E_SPIDER_ERROR "There's a spider in your " ## FMT_S ## "!!!"
881 (define fmt-s (if (defined? 'simple-format) "~S" "%S"))
882 (define make-message string-append)
884 (define e-spider-error (make-message "There's a spider in your " fmt-s "!!!"))
886 Method 2: Use the oldfmt function found in doc/oldfmt.c.
890 scm_misc_error ("picnic", scm_c_oldfmt0 ("There's a spider in your ~S!!!"),
895 (scm-error 'misc-error "picnic" (oldfmt "There's a spider in your ~S!!!")
899 ** Deprecated: coop_mutex_init, coop_condition_variable_init
901 Don't use the functions coop_mutex_init and
902 coop_condition_variable_init. They will change.
904 Use scm_mutex_init and scm_cond_init instead.
906 ** New function: int scm_cond_timedwait (scm_cond_t *COND, scm_mutex_t *MUTEX, const struct timespec *ABSTIME)
907 `scm_cond_timedwait' atomically unlocks MUTEX and waits on
908 COND, as `scm_cond_wait' does, but it also bounds the duration
909 of the wait. If COND has not been signaled before time ABSTIME,
910 the mutex MUTEX is re-acquired and `scm_cond_timedwait'
911 returns the error code `ETIMEDOUT'.
913 The ABSTIME parameter specifies an absolute time, with the same
914 origin as `time' and `gettimeofday': an ABSTIME of 0 corresponds
915 to 00:00:00 GMT, January 1, 1970.
917 ** New function: scm_cond_broadcast (scm_cond_t *COND)
918 `scm_cond_broadcast' restarts all the threads that are waiting
919 on the condition variable COND. Nothing happens if no threads are
922 ** New function: scm_key_create (scm_key_t *KEY, void (*destr_function) (void *))
923 `scm_key_create' allocates a new TSD key. The key is stored in
924 the location pointed to by KEY. There is no limit on the number
925 of keys allocated at a given time. The value initially associated
926 with the returned key is `NULL' in all currently executing threads.
928 The DESTR_FUNCTION argument, if not `NULL', specifies a destructor
929 function associated with the key. When a thread terminates,
930 DESTR_FUNCTION is called on the value associated with the key in
931 that thread. The DESTR_FUNCTION is not called if a key is deleted
932 with `scm_key_delete' or a value is changed with
933 `scm_setspecific'. The order in which destructor functions are
934 called at thread termination time is unspecified.
936 Destructors are not yet implemented.
938 ** New function: scm_setspecific (scm_key_t KEY, const void *POINTER)
939 `scm_setspecific' changes the value associated with KEY in the
940 calling thread, storing the given POINTER instead.
942 ** New function: scm_getspecific (scm_key_t KEY)
943 `scm_getspecific' returns the value currently associated with
944 KEY in the calling thread.
946 ** New function: scm_key_delete (scm_key_t KEY)
947 `scm_key_delete' deallocates a TSD key. It does not check
948 whether non-`NULL' values are associated with that key in the
949 currently executing threads, nor call the destructor function
950 associated with the key.
952 ** New function: scm_c_hook_init (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *HOOK_DATA, scm_c_hook_type_t TYPE)
954 Initialize a C level hook HOOK with associated HOOK_DATA and type
955 TYPE. (See scm_c_hook_run ().)
957 ** New function: scm_c_hook_add (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA, int APPENDP)
959 Add hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA to HOOK. If APPENDP
960 is true, add it last, otherwise first. The same FUNC can be added
961 multiple times if FUNC_DATA differ and vice versa.
963 ** New function: scm_c_hook_remove (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, scm_c_hook_function_t FUNC, void *FUNC_DATA)
965 Remove hook function FUNC with associated FUNC_DATA from HOOK. A
966 function is only removed if both FUNC and FUNC_DATA matches.
968 ** New function: void *scm_c_hook_run (scm_c_hook_t *HOOK, void *DATA)
970 Run hook HOOK passing DATA to the hook functions.
972 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_NORMAL, all hook functions are run. The value
973 returned is undefined.
975 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_OR, hook functions are run until a function
976 returns a non-NULL value. This value is returned as the result of
977 scm_c_hook_run. If all functions return NULL, NULL is returned.
979 If TYPE is SCM_C_HOOK_AND, hook functions are run until a function
980 returns a NULL value, and NULL is returned. If all functions returns
981 a non-NULL value, the last value is returned.
983 ** New C level GC hooks
985 Five new C level hooks has been added to the garbage collector.
990 are run before locking and after unlocking the heap. The system is
991 thus in a mode where evaluation can take place. (Except that
992 scm_before_gc_c_hook must not allocate new cells.)
994 scm_before_mark_c_hook
995 scm_before_sweep_c_hook
996 scm_after_sweep_c_hook
998 are run when the heap is locked. These are intended for extension of
999 the GC in a modular fashion. Examples are the weaks and guardians
1002 ** Way for application to customize GC parameters
1004 The application can set up other default values for the GC heap
1005 allocation parameters
1007 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_1, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_1,
1008 GUILE_INIT_HEAP_SIZE_2, GUILE_MIN_YIELD_2,
1009 GUILE_MAX_SEGMENT_SIZE,
1013 scm_default_init_heap_size_1, scm_default_min_yield_1,
1014 scm_default_init_heap_size_2, scm_default_min_yield_2,
1015 scm_default_max_segment_size
1017 respectively before callong scm_boot_guile.
1019 (See entry "New environment variables ..." in section
1020 "Changes to the stand-alone interpreter" above.)
1022 ** scm_protect_object/scm_unprotect_object now nest
1024 This means that you can call scm_protect_object multiple times on an
1025 object and count on the object being protected until
1026 scm_unprotect_object has been call the same number of times.
1028 The functions also have better time complexity.
1030 Still, it is usually possible to structure the application in a way
1031 that you don't need to use these functions. For example, if you use a
1032 protected standard Guile list to keep track of live objects rather
1033 than some custom data type, objects will die a natural death when they
1034 are no longer needed.
1036 ** Deprecated type tags: scm_tc16_flo, scm_tc_flo, scm_tc_dblr, scm_tc_dblc
1038 Guile does not provide the float representation for inexact real numbers any
1039 more. Now, only doubles are used to represent inexact real numbers. Further,
1040 the tag names scm_tc_dblr and scm_tc_dblc have been changed to scm_tc16_real
1041 and scm_tc16_complex, respectively.
1043 ** Removed deprecated type scm_smobfuns
1045 ** Removed deprecated function scm_newsmob
1047 ** Warning: scm_make_smob_type_mfpe might become deprecated in a future release
1049 There is an ongoing discussion among the developers whether to
1050 deprecate `scm_make_smob_type_mfpe' or not. Please use the current
1051 standard interface (scm_make_smob_type, scm_set_smob_XXX) in new code
1052 until this issue has been settled.
1054 ** Removed deprecated type tag scm_tc16_kw
1056 ** Added type tag scm_tc16_keyword
1058 (This was introduced already in release 1.3.4 but was not documented
1061 ** gdb_print now prints "*** Guile not initialized ***" until Guile initialized
1063 * Changes to system call interfaces:
1065 ** The "select" procedure now tests port buffers for the ability to
1066 provide input or accept output. Previously only the underlying file
1067 descriptors were checked.
1069 ** New variable PIPE_BUF: the maximum number of bytes that can be
1070 atomically written to a pipe.
1072 ** If a facility is not available on the system when Guile is
1073 compiled, the corresponding primitive procedure will not be defined.
1074 Previously it would have been defined but would throw a system-error
1075 exception if called. Exception handlers which catch this case may
1076 need minor modification: an error will be thrown with key
1077 'unbound-variable instead of 'system-error. Alternatively it's
1078 now possible to use `defined?' to check whether the facility is
1081 ** Procedures which depend on the timezone should now give the correct
1082 result on systems which cache the TZ environment variable, even if TZ
1083 is changed without calling tzset.
1085 * Changes to the networking interfaces:
1087 ** New functions: htons, ntohs, htonl, ntohl: for converting short and
1088 long integers between network and host format. For now, it's not
1089 particularly convenient to do this kind of thing, but consider:
1091 (define write-network-long
1092 (lambda (value port)
1093 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
1094 (uniform-vector-set! v 0 (htonl value))
1095 (uniform-vector-write v port))))
1097 (define read-network-long
1099 (let ((v (make-uniform-vector 1 1 0)))
1100 (uniform-vector-read! v port)
1101 (ntohl (uniform-vector-ref v 0)))))
1103 ** If inet-aton fails, it now throws an error with key 'misc-error
1104 instead of 'system-error, since errno is not relevant.
1106 ** Certain gethostbyname/gethostbyaddr failures now throw errors with
1107 specific keys instead of 'system-error. The latter is inappropriate
1108 since errno will not have been set. The keys are:
1109 'host-not-found, 'try-again, 'no-recovery and 'no-data.
1111 ** sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent: now take an
1112 optional argument STAYOPEN, which specifies whether the database
1113 remains open after a database entry is accessed randomly (e.g., using
1114 gethostbyname for the hosts database.) The default is #f. Previously
1118 Changes since Guile 1.3.2:
1120 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1124 An initial version of the Guile debugger written by Chris Hanson has
1125 been added. The debugger is still under development but is included
1126 in the distribution anyway since it is already quite useful.
1132 after an error to enter the debugger. Type `help' inside the debugger
1133 for a description of available commands.
1135 If you prefer to have stack frames numbered and printed in
1136 anti-chronological order and prefer up in the stack to be down on the
1137 screen as is the case in gdb, you can put
1139 (debug-enable 'backwards)
1141 in your .guile startup file. (However, this means that Guile can't
1142 use indentation to indicate stack level.)
1144 The debugger is autoloaded into Guile at the first use.
1146 ** Further enhancements to backtraces
1148 There is a new debug option `width' which controls the maximum width
1149 on the screen of printed stack frames. Fancy printing parameters
1150 ("level" and "length" as in Common LISP) are adaptively adjusted for
1151 each stack frame to give maximum information while still fitting
1152 within the bounds. If the stack frame can't be made to fit by
1153 adjusting parameters, it is simply cut off at the end. This is marked
1156 ** Some modules are now only loaded when the repl is started
1158 The modules (ice-9 debug), (ice-9 session), (ice-9 threads) and (ice-9
1159 regex) are now loaded into (guile-user) only if the repl has been
1160 started. The effect is that the startup time for scripts has been
1161 reduced to 30% of what it was previously.
1163 Correctly written scripts load the modules they require at the top of
1164 the file and should not be affected by this change.
1166 ** Hooks are now represented as smobs
1168 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1170 ** Readline support has changed again.
1172 The old (readline-activator) module is gone. Use (ice-9 readline)
1173 instead, which now contains all readline functionality. So the code
1174 to activate readline is now
1176 (use-modules (ice-9 readline))
1179 This should work at any time, including from the guile prompt.
1181 To avoid confusion about the terms of Guile's license, please only
1182 enable readline for your personal use; please don't make it the
1183 default for others. Here is why we make this rather odd-sounding
1186 Guile is normally licensed under a weakened form of the GNU General
1187 Public License, which allows you to link code with Guile without
1188 placing that code under the GPL. This exception is important to some
1191 However, since readline is distributed under the GNU General Public
1192 License, when you link Guile with readline, either statically or
1193 dynamically, you effectively change Guile's license to the strict GPL.
1194 Whenever you link any strictly GPL'd code into Guile, uses of Guile
1195 which are normally permitted become forbidden. This is a rather
1196 non-obvious consequence of the licensing terms.
1198 So, to make sure things remain clear, please let people choose for
1199 themselves whether to link GPL'd libraries like readline with Guile.
1201 ** regexp-substitute/global has changed slightly, but incompatibly.
1203 If you include a function in the item list, the string of the match
1204 object it receives is the same string passed to
1205 regexp-substitute/global, not some suffix of that string.
1206 Correspondingly, the match's positions are relative to the entire
1207 string, not the suffix.
1209 If the regexp can match the empty string, the way matches are chosen
1210 from the string has changed. regexp-substitute/global recognizes the
1211 same set of matches that list-matches does; see below.
1213 ** New function: list-matches REGEXP STRING [FLAGS]
1215 Return a list of match objects, one for every non-overlapping, maximal
1216 match of REGEXP in STRING. The matches appear in left-to-right order.
1217 list-matches only reports matches of the empty string if there are no
1218 other matches which begin on, end at, or include the empty match's
1221 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
1223 ** New function: fold-matches REGEXP STRING INIT PROC [FLAGS]
1225 For each match of REGEXP in STRING, apply PROC to the match object,
1226 and the last value PROC returned, or INIT for the first call. Return
1227 the last value returned by PROC. We apply PROC to the matches as they
1228 appear from left to right.
1230 This function recognizes matches according to the same criteria as
1233 Thus, you could define list-matches like this:
1235 (define (list-matches regexp string . flags)
1236 (reverse! (apply fold-matches regexp string '() cons flags)))
1238 If present, FLAGS is passed as the FLAGS argument to regexp-exec.
1242 *** New function: hook? OBJ
1244 Return #t if OBJ is a hook, otherwise #f.
1246 *** New function: make-hook-with-name NAME [ARITY]
1248 Return a hook with name NAME and arity ARITY. The default value for
1249 ARITY is 0. The only effect of NAME is that it will appear when the
1250 hook object is printed to ease debugging.
1252 *** New function: hook-empty? HOOK
1254 Return #t if HOOK doesn't contain any procedures, otherwise #f.
1256 *** New function: hook->list HOOK
1258 Return a list of the procedures that are called when run-hook is
1261 ** `map' signals an error if its argument lists are not all the same length.
1263 This is the behavior required by R5RS, so this change is really a bug
1264 fix. But it seems to affect a lot of people's code, so we're
1265 mentioning it here anyway.
1267 ** Print-state handling has been made more transparent
1269 Under certain circumstances, ports are represented as a port with an
1270 associated print state. Earlier, this pair was represented as a pair
1271 (see "Some magic has been added to the printer" below). It is now
1272 indistinguishable (almost; see `get-print-state') from a port on the
1275 *** New function: port-with-print-state OUTPUT-PORT PRINT-STATE
1277 Return a new port with the associated print state PRINT-STATE.
1279 *** New function: get-print-state OUTPUT-PORT
1281 Return the print state associated with this port if it exists,
1282 otherwise return #f.
1284 *** New function: directory-stream? OBJECT
1286 Returns true iff OBJECT is a directory stream --- the sort of object
1287 returned by `opendir'.
1289 ** New function: using-readline?
1291 Return #t if readline is in use in the current repl.
1293 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
1295 Structs will be replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into Guile
1296 and use GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
1298 * Changes to the scm_ interface
1300 ** structs will be removed in 1.4
1302 The entire current struct interface (struct.c, struct.h) will be
1303 replaced in Guile 1.4. We will merge GOOPS into libguile and use
1304 GOOPS objects as the fundamental record type.
1306 ** The internal representation of subr's has changed
1308 Instead of giving a hint to the subr name, the CAR field of the subr
1309 now contains an index to a subr entry in scm_subr_table.
1311 *** New variable: scm_subr_table
1313 An array of subr entries. A subr entry contains the name, properties
1314 and documentation associated with the subr. The properties and
1315 documentation slots are not yet used.
1317 ** A new scheme for "forwarding" calls to a builtin to a generic function
1319 It is now possible to extend the functionality of some Guile
1320 primitives by letting them defer a call to a GOOPS generic function on
1321 argument mismatch. This means that there is no loss of efficiency in
1326 (use-modules (oop goops)) ; Must be GOOPS version 0.2.
1327 (define-method + ((x <string>) (y <string>))
1328 (string-append x y))
1330 + will still be as efficient as usual in numerical calculations, but
1331 can also be used for concatenating strings.
1333 Who will be the first one to extend Guile's numerical tower to
1334 rationals? :) [OK, there a few other things to fix before this can
1335 be made in a clean way.]
1337 *** New snarf macros for defining primitives: SCM_GPROC, SCM_GPROC1
1339 New macro: SCM_GPROC (CNAME, SNAME, REQ, OPT, VAR, CFUNC, GENERIC)
1341 New macro: SCM_GPROC1 (CNAME, SNAME, TYPE, CFUNC, GENERIC)
1343 These do the same job as SCM_PROC and SCM_PROC1, but they also define
1344 a variable GENERIC which can be used by the dispatch macros below.
1346 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
1348 *** New macros for forwarding control to a generic on arg type error
1350 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_1 (GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
1352 New macro: SCM_WTA_DISPATCH_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
1354 These correspond to the scm_wta function call, and have the same
1355 behaviour until the user has called the GOOPS primitive
1356 `enable-primitive-generic!'. After that, these macros will apply the
1357 generic function GENERIC to the argument(s) instead of calling
1360 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
1362 *** New macros for argument testing with generic dispatch
1364 New macro: SCM_GASSERT1 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, POS, SUBR)
1366 New macro: SCM_GASSERT2 (COND, GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, POS, SUBR)
1368 These correspond to the SCM_ASSERT macro, but will defer control to
1369 GENERIC on error after `enable-primitive-generic!' has been called.
1371 [This is experimental code which may change soon.]
1373 ** New function: SCM scm_eval_body (SCM body, SCM env)
1375 Evaluates the body of a special form.
1377 ** The internal representation of struct's has changed
1379 Previously, four slots were allocated for the procedure(s) of entities
1380 and operators. The motivation for this representation had to do with
1381 the structure of the evaluator, the wish to support tail-recursive
1382 generic functions, and efficiency. Since the generic function
1383 dispatch mechanism has changed, there is no longer a need for such an
1384 expensive representation, and the representation has been simplified.
1386 This should not make any difference for most users.
1388 ** GOOPS support has been cleaned up.
1390 Some code has been moved from eval.c to objects.c and code in both of
1391 these compilation units has been cleaned up and better structured.
1393 *** New functions for applying generic functions
1395 New function: SCM scm_apply_generic (GENERIC, ARGS)
1396 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_0 (GENERIC)
1397 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_1 (GENERIC, ARG1)
1398 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_2 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2)
1399 New function: SCM scm_call_generic_3 (GENERIC, ARG1, ARG2, ARG3)
1401 ** Deprecated function: scm_make_named_hook
1403 It is now replaced by:
1405 ** New function: SCM scm_create_hook (const char *name, int arity)
1407 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
1408 binds a variable named NAME to it.
1410 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
1412 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module.
1413 This might change when we get the new module system.
1415 [The behaviour is identical to scm_make_named_hook.]
1419 Changes since Guile 1.3:
1421 * Changes to mailing lists
1423 ** Some of the Guile mailing lists have moved to sourceware.cygnus.com.
1425 See the README file to find current addresses for all the Guile
1428 * Changes to the distribution
1430 ** Readline support is no longer included with Guile by default.
1432 Based on the different license terms of Guile and Readline, we
1433 concluded that Guile should not *by default* cause the linking of
1434 Readline into an application program. Readline support is now offered
1435 as a separate module, which is linked into an application only when
1436 you explicitly specify it.
1438 Although Guile is GNU software, its distribution terms add a special
1439 exception to the usual GNU General Public License (GPL). Guile's
1440 license includes a clause that allows you to link Guile with non-free
1441 programs. We add this exception so as not to put Guile at a
1442 disadvantage vis-a-vis other extensibility packages that support other
1445 In contrast, the GNU Readline library is distributed under the GNU
1446 General Public License pure and simple. This means that you may not
1447 link Readline, even dynamically, into an application unless it is
1448 distributed under a free software license that is compatible the GPL.
1450 Because of this difference in distribution terms, an application that
1451 can use Guile may not be able to use Readline. Now users will be
1452 explicitly offered two independent decisions about the use of these
1455 You can activate the readline support by issuing
1457 (use-modules (readline-activator))
1460 from your ".guile" file, for example.
1462 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
1464 ** All builtins now print as primitives.
1465 Previously builtin procedures not belonging to the fundamental subr
1466 types printed as #<compiled closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>.
1467 Now, they print as #<primitive-procedure NAME>.
1469 ** Backtraces slightly more intelligible.
1470 gsubr-apply and macro transformer application frames no longer appear
1473 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
1475 ** Guile now correctly handles internal defines by rewriting them into
1476 their equivalent letrec. Previously, internal defines would
1477 incrementally add to the innermost environment, without checking
1478 whether the restrictions specified in RnRS were met. This lead to the
1479 correct behaviour when these restriction actually were met, but didn't
1480 catch all illegal uses. Such an illegal use could lead to crashes of
1481 the Guile interpreter or or other unwanted results. An example of
1482 incorrect internal defines that made Guile behave erratically:
1494 The problem with this example is that the definition of `c' uses the
1495 value of `b' directly. This confuses the meoization machine of Guile
1496 so that the second call of `b' (this time in a larger environment that
1497 also contains bindings for `c' and `d') refers to the binding of `c'
1498 instead of `a'. You could also make Guile crash with a variation on
1503 (define (b flag) (if flag a 1))
1504 (define c (1+ (b flag)))
1512 From now on, Guile will issue an `Unbound variable: b' error message
1517 A hook contains a list of functions which should be called on
1518 particular occasions in an existing program. Hooks are used for
1521 A window manager might have a hook before-window-map-hook. The window
1522 manager uses the function run-hooks to call all functions stored in
1523 before-window-map-hook each time a window is mapped. The user can
1524 store functions in the hook using add-hook!.
1526 In Guile, hooks are first class objects.
1528 *** New function: make-hook [N_ARGS]
1530 Return a hook for hook functions which can take N_ARGS arguments.
1531 The default value for N_ARGS is 0.
1533 (See also scm_make_named_hook below.)
1535 *** New function: add-hook! HOOK PROC [APPEND_P]
1537 Put PROC at the beginning of the list of functions stored in HOOK.
1538 If APPEND_P is supplied, and non-false, put PROC at the end instead.
1540 PROC must be able to take the number of arguments specified when the
1543 If PROC already exists in HOOK, then remove it first.
1545 *** New function: remove-hook! HOOK PROC
1547 Remove PROC from the list of functions in HOOK.
1549 *** New function: reset-hook! HOOK
1551 Clear the list of hook functions stored in HOOK.
1553 *** New function: run-hook HOOK ARG1 ...
1555 Run all hook functions stored in HOOK with arguments ARG1 ... .
1556 The number of arguments supplied must correspond to the number given
1557 when the hook was created.
1559 ** The function `dynamic-link' now takes optional keyword arguments.
1560 The only keyword argument that is currently defined is `:global
1561 BOOL'. With it, you can control whether the shared library will be
1562 linked in global mode or not. In global mode, the symbols from the
1563 linked library can be used to resolve references from other
1564 dynamically linked libraries. In non-global mode, the linked
1565 library is essentially invisible and can only be accessed via
1566 `dynamic-func', etc. The default is now to link in global mode.
1567 Previously, the default has been non-global mode.
1569 The `#:global' keyword is only effective on platforms that support
1570 the dlopen family of functions.
1572 ** New function `provided?'
1574 - Function: provided? FEATURE
1575 Return true iff FEATURE is supported by this installation of
1576 Guile. FEATURE must be a symbol naming a feature; the global
1577 variable `*features*' is a list of available features.
1579 ** Changes to the module (ice-9 expect):
1581 *** The expect-strings macro now matches `$' in a regular expression
1582 only at a line-break or end-of-file by default. Previously it would
1583 match the end of the string accumulated so far. The old behaviour
1584 can be obtained by setting the variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
1587 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable `expect-strings-exec-flags'
1588 for the regexp-exec flags. If `regexp/noteol' is included, then `$'
1589 in a regular expression will still match before a line-break or
1590 end-of-file. The default is `regexp/noteol'.
1592 *** The expect-strings macro now uses a variable
1593 `expect-strings-compile-flags' for the flags to be supplied to
1594 `make-regexp'. The default is `regexp/newline', which was previously
1597 *** The expect macro now supplies two arguments to a match procedure:
1598 the current accumulated string and a flag to indicate whether
1599 end-of-file has been reached. Previously only the string was supplied.
1600 If end-of-file is reached, the match procedure will be called an
1601 additional time with the same accumulated string as the previous call
1602 but with the flag set.
1604 ** New module (ice-9 format), implementing the Common Lisp `format' function.
1606 This code, and the documentation for it that appears here, was
1607 borrowed from SLIB, with minor adaptations for Guile.
1609 - Function: format DESTINATION FORMAT-STRING . ARGUMENTS
1610 An almost complete implementation of Common LISP format description
1611 according to the CL reference book `Common LISP' from Guy L.
1612 Steele, Digital Press. Backward compatible to most of the
1613 available Scheme format implementations.
1615 Returns `#t', `#f' or a string; has side effect of printing
1616 according to FORMAT-STRING. If DESTINATION is `#t', the output is
1617 to the current output port and `#t' is returned. If DESTINATION
1618 is `#f', a formatted string is returned as the result of the call.
1619 NEW: If DESTINATION is a string, DESTINATION is regarded as the
1620 format string; FORMAT-STRING is then the first argument and the
1621 output is returned as a string. If DESTINATION is a number, the
1622 output is to the current error port if available by the
1623 implementation. Otherwise DESTINATION must be an output port and
1626 FORMAT-STRING must be a string. In case of a formatting error
1627 format returns `#f' and prints a message on the current output or
1628 error port. Characters are output as if the string were output by
1629 the `display' function with the exception of those prefixed by a
1630 tilde (~). For a detailed description of the FORMAT-STRING syntax
1631 please consult a Common LISP format reference manual. For a test
1632 suite to verify this format implementation load `formatst.scm'.
1633 Please send bug reports to `lutzeb@cs.tu-berlin.de'.
1635 Note: `format' is not reentrant, i.e. only one `format'-call may
1636 be executed at a time.
1639 *** Format Specification (Format version 3.0)
1641 Please consult a Common LISP format reference manual for a detailed
1642 description of the format string syntax. For a demonstration of the
1643 implemented directives see `formatst.scm'.
1645 This implementation supports directive parameters and modifiers (`:'
1646 and `@' characters). Multiple parameters must be separated by a comma
1647 (`,'). Parameters can be numerical parameters (positive or negative),
1648 character parameters (prefixed by a quote character (`''), variable
1649 parameters (`v'), number of rest arguments parameter (`#'), empty and
1650 default parameters. Directive characters are case independent. The
1651 general form of a directive is:
1653 DIRECTIVE ::= ~{DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER,}[:][@]DIRECTIVE-CHARACTER
1655 DIRECTIVE-PARAMETER ::= [ [-|+]{0-9}+ | 'CHARACTER | v | # ]
1657 *** Implemented CL Format Control Directives
1659 Documentation syntax: Uppercase characters represent the
1660 corresponding control directive characters. Lowercase characters
1661 represent control directive parameter descriptions.
1664 Any (print as `display' does).
1668 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARA'
1672 S-expression (print as `write' does).
1676 `~MINCOL,COLINC,MINPAD,PADCHARS'
1682 print number sign always.
1685 print comma separated.
1687 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARD'
1693 print number sign always.
1696 print comma separated.
1698 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARX'
1704 print number sign always.
1707 print comma separated.
1709 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARO'
1715 print number sign always.
1718 print comma separated.
1720 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARB'
1725 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHARR'
1729 print a number as a Roman numeral.
1732 print a number as an "old fashioned" Roman numeral.
1735 print a number as an ordinal English number.
1738 print a number as a cardinal English number.
1743 prints `y' and `ies'.
1746 as `~P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
1749 as `~@P but jumps 1 argument backward.'
1754 prints a character as the reader can understand it (i.e. `#\'
1758 prints a character as emacs does (eg. `^C' for ASCII 03).
1761 Fixed-format floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN).
1762 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHARF'
1764 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
1767 Exponential floating-point (prints a flonum like MMM.NNN`E'EE).
1768 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARE'
1770 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
1773 General floating-point (prints a flonum either fixed or
1775 `~WIDTH,DIGITS,EXPONENTDIGITS,SCALE,OVERFLOWCHAR,PADCHAR,EXPONENTCHARG'
1777 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
1780 Dollars floating-point (prints a flonum in fixed with signs
1782 `~DIGITS,SCALE,WIDTH,PADCHAR$'
1784 If the number is positive a plus sign is printed.
1787 A sign is always printed and appears before the padding.
1790 The sign appears before the padding.
1798 print newline if not at the beginning of the output line.
1800 prints `~&' and then N-1 newlines.
1805 print N page separators.
1815 newline is ignored, white space left.
1818 newline is left, white space ignored.
1823 relative tabulation.
1829 Indirection (expects indirect arguments as a list).
1831 extracts indirect arguments from format arguments.
1834 Case conversion (converts by `string-downcase').
1836 converts by `string-capitalize'.
1839 converts by `string-capitalize-first'.
1842 converts by `string-upcase'.
1845 Argument Jumping (jumps 1 argument forward).
1847 jumps N arguments forward.
1850 jumps 1 argument backward.
1853 jumps N arguments backward.
1856 jumps to the 0th argument.
1859 jumps to the Nth argument (beginning from 0)
1861 `~[STR0~;STR1~;...~;STRN~]'
1862 Conditional Expression (numerical clause conditional).
1864 take argument from N.
1867 true test conditional.
1870 if-else-then conditional.
1876 default clause follows.
1879 Iteration (args come from the next argument (a list)).
1881 at most N iterations.
1884 args from next arg (a list of lists).
1887 args from the rest of arguments.
1890 args from the rest args (lists).
1901 aborts if N <= M <= K
1903 *** Not Implemented CL Format Control Directives
1906 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
1909 print `#f' as an empty list (see below).
1915 (sorry I don't understand its semantics completely)
1917 *** Extended, Replaced and Additional Control Directives
1919 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHD'
1920 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHX'
1921 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHO'
1922 `~MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHB'
1923 `~N,MINCOL,PADCHAR,COMMACHAR,COMMAWIDTHR'
1924 COMMAWIDTH is the number of characters between two comma
1928 print a R4RS complex number as `~F~@Fi' with passed parameters for
1932 Pretty print formatting of an argument for scheme code lists.
1938 Flushes the output if format DESTINATION is a port.
1941 Print a `#\space' character
1943 print N `#\space' characters.
1946 Print a `#\tab' character
1948 print N `#\tab' characters.
1951 Takes N as an integer representation for a character. No arguments
1952 are consumed. N is converted to a character by `integer->char'. N
1953 must be a positive decimal number.
1956 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
1957 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
1958 be processed by `read'.
1961 Print out readproof. Prints out internal objects represented as
1962 `#<...>' as strings `"#<...>"' so that the format output can always
1963 be processed by `read'.
1966 Prints information and a copyright notice on the format
1969 prints format version.
1972 may also print number strings, i.e. passing a number as a string
1973 and format it accordingly.
1975 *** Configuration Variables
1977 The format module exports some configuration variables to suit the
1978 systems and users needs. There should be no modification necessary for
1979 the configuration that comes with Guile. Format detects automatically
1980 if the running scheme system implements floating point numbers and
1983 format:symbol-case-conv
1984 Symbols are converted by `symbol->string' so the case type of the
1985 printed symbols is implementation dependent.
1986 `format:symbol-case-conv' is a one arg closure which is either
1987 `#f' (no conversion), `string-upcase', `string-downcase' or
1988 `string-capitalize'. (default `#f')
1990 format:iobj-case-conv
1991 As FORMAT:SYMBOL-CASE-CONV but applies for the representation of
1992 implementation internal objects. (default `#f')
1995 The character prefixing the exponent value in `~E' printing.
1998 *** Compatibility With Other Format Implementations
2004 Downward compatible except for padding support and `~A', `~S',
2005 `~P', `~X' uppercase printing. SLIB format 1.4 uses C-style
2006 `printf' padding support which is completely replaced by the CL
2007 `format' padding style.
2010 Downward compatible except for `~', which is not documented
2011 (ignores all characters inside the format string up to a newline
2012 character). (7.1 implements `~a', `~s', ~NEWLINE, `~~', `~%',
2013 numerical and variable parameters and `:/@' modifiers in the CL
2017 Downward compatible except for `~A' and `~S' which print in
2018 uppercase. (Elk implements `~a', `~s', `~~', and `~%' (no
2019 directive parameters or modifiers)).
2022 Downward compatible except for an optional destination parameter:
2023 S2C accepts a format call without a destination which returns a
2024 formatted string. This is equivalent to a #f destination in S2C.
2025 (S2C implements `~a', `~s', `~c', `~%', and `~~' (no directive
2026 parameters or modifiers)).
2029 ** Changes to string-handling functions.
2031 These functions were added to support the (ice-9 format) module, above.
2033 *** New function: string-upcase STRING
2034 *** New function: string-downcase STRING
2036 These are non-destructive versions of the existing string-upcase! and
2037 string-downcase! functions.
2039 *** New function: string-capitalize! STRING
2040 *** New function: string-capitalize STRING
2042 These functions convert the first letter of each word in the string to
2045 (string-capitalize "howdy there")
2048 As with the other functions, string-capitalize! modifies the string in
2049 place, while string-capitalize returns a modified copy of its argument.
2051 *** New function: string-ci->symbol STRING
2053 Return a symbol whose name is STRING, but having the same case as if
2054 the symbol had be read by `read'.
2056 Guile can be configured to be sensitive or insensitive to case
2057 differences in Scheme identifiers. If Guile is case-insensitive, all
2058 symbols are converted to lower case on input. The `string-ci->symbol'
2059 function returns a symbol whose name in STRING, transformed as Guile
2060 would if STRING were input.
2062 *** New function: substring-move! STRING1 START END STRING2 START
2064 Copy the substring of STRING1 from START (inclusive) to END
2065 (exclusive) to STRING2 at START. STRING1 and STRING2 may be the same
2066 string, and the source and destination areas may overlap; in all
2067 cases, the function behaves as if all the characters were copied
2070 *** Extended functions: substring-move-left! substring-move-right!
2072 These functions now correctly copy arbitrarily overlapping substrings;
2073 they are both synonyms for substring-move!.
2076 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-long), with the function `getopt-long'.
2078 getopt-long is a function for parsing command-line arguments in a
2079 manner consistent with other GNU programs.
2081 (getopt-long ARGS GRAMMAR)
2082 Parse the arguments ARGS according to the argument list grammar GRAMMAR.
2084 ARGS should be a list of strings. Its first element should be the
2085 name of the program; subsequent elements should be the arguments
2086 that were passed to the program on the command line. The
2087 `program-arguments' procedure returns a list of this form.
2089 GRAMMAR is a list of the form:
2090 ((OPTION (PROPERTY VALUE) ...) ...)
2092 Each OPTION should be a symbol. `getopt-long' will accept a
2093 command-line option named `--OPTION'.
2094 Each option can have the following (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs:
2096 (single-char CHAR) --- Accept `-CHAR' as a single-character
2097 equivalent to `--OPTION'. This is how to specify traditional
2099 (required? BOOL) --- If BOOL is true, the option is required.
2100 getopt-long will raise an error if it is not found in ARGS.
2101 (value BOOL) --- If BOOL is #t, the option accepts a value; if
2102 it is #f, it does not; and if it is the symbol
2103 `optional', the option may appear in ARGS with or
2105 (predicate FUNC) --- If the option accepts a value (i.e. you
2106 specified `(value #t)' for this option), then getopt
2107 will apply FUNC to the value, and throw an exception
2108 if it returns #f. FUNC should be a procedure which
2109 accepts a string and returns a boolean value; you may
2110 need to use quasiquotes to get it into GRAMMAR.
2112 The (PROPERTY VALUE) pairs may occur in any order, but each
2113 property may occur only once. By default, options do not have
2114 single-character equivalents, are not required, and do not take
2117 In ARGS, single-character options may be combined, in the usual
2118 Unix fashion: ("-x" "-y") is equivalent to ("-xy"). If an option
2119 accepts values, then it must be the last option in the
2120 combination; the value is the next argument. So, for example, using
2121 the following grammar:
2122 ((apples (single-char #\a))
2123 (blimps (single-char #\b) (value #t))
2124 (catalexis (single-char #\c) (value #t)))
2125 the following argument lists would be acceptable:
2126 ("-a" "-b" "bang" "-c" "couth") ("bang" and "couth" are the values
2127 for "blimps" and "catalexis")
2128 ("-ab" "bang" "-c" "couth") (same)
2129 ("-ac" "couth" "-b" "bang") (same)
2130 ("-abc" "couth" "bang") (an error, since `-b' is not the
2131 last option in its combination)
2133 If an option's value is optional, then `getopt-long' decides
2134 whether it has a value by looking at what follows it in ARGS. If
2135 the next element is a string, and it does not appear to be an
2136 option itself, then that string is the option's value.
2138 The value of a long option can appear as the next element in ARGS,
2139 or it can follow the option name, separated by an `=' character.
2140 Thus, using the same grammar as above, the following argument lists
2142 ("--apples" "Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
2143 ("--apples=Braeburn" "--blimps" "Goodyear")
2144 ("--blimps" "Goodyear" "--apples=Braeburn")
2146 If the option "--" appears in ARGS, argument parsing stops there;
2147 subsequent arguments are returned as ordinary arguments, even if
2148 they resemble options. So, in the argument list:
2149 ("--apples" "Granny Smith" "--" "--blimp" "Goodyear")
2150 `getopt-long' will recognize the `apples' option as having the
2151 value "Granny Smith", but it will not recognize the `blimp'
2152 option; it will return the strings "--blimp" and "Goodyear" as
2153 ordinary argument strings.
2155 The `getopt-long' function returns the parsed argument list as an
2156 assocation list, mapping option names --- the symbols from GRAMMAR
2157 --- onto their values, or #t if the option does not accept a value.
2158 Unused options do not appear in the alist.
2160 All arguments that are not the value of any option are returned
2161 as a list, associated with the empty list.
2163 `getopt-long' throws an exception if:
2164 - it finds an unrecognized option in ARGS
2165 - a required option is omitted
2166 - an option that requires an argument doesn't get one
2167 - an option that doesn't accept an argument does get one (this can
2168 only happen using the long option `--opt=value' syntax)
2169 - an option predicate fails
2174 `((lockfile-dir (required? #t)
2177 (predicate ,file-is-directory?))
2178 (verbose (required? #f)
2181 (x-includes (single-char #\x))
2182 (rnet-server (single-char #\y)
2183 (predicate ,string?))))
2185 (getopt-long '("my-prog" "-vk" "/tmp" "foo1" "--x-includes=/usr/include"
2186 "--rnet-server=lamprod" "--" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
2188 => ((() "foo1" "-fred" "foo2" "foo3")
2189 (rnet-server . "lamprod")
2190 (x-includes . "/usr/include")
2191 (lockfile-dir . "/tmp")
2194 ** The (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style) module is obsolete; use (ice-9 getopt-long).
2196 It will be removed in a few releases.
2198 ** New syntax: lambda*
2199 ** New syntax: define*
2200 ** New syntax: define*-public
2201 ** New syntax: defmacro*
2202 ** New syntax: defmacro*-public
2203 Guile now supports optional arguments.
2205 `lambda*', `define*', `define*-public', `defmacro*' and
2206 `defmacro*-public' are identical to the non-* versions except that
2207 they use an extended type of parameter list that has the following BNF
2208 syntax (parentheses are literal, square brackets indicate grouping,
2209 and `*', `+' and `?' have the usual meaning):
2211 ext-param-list ::= ( [identifier]* [#&optional [ext-var-decl]+]?
2212 [#&key [ext-var-decl]+ [#&allow-other-keys]?]?
2213 [[#&rest identifier]|[. identifier]]? ) | [identifier]
2215 ext-var-decl ::= identifier | ( identifier expression )
2217 The semantics are best illustrated with the following documentation
2218 and examples for `lambda*':
2221 lambda extended for optional and keyword arguments
2223 lambda* creates a procedure that takes optional arguments. These
2224 are specified by putting them inside brackets at the end of the
2225 paramater list, but before any dotted rest argument. For example,
2226 (lambda* (a b #&optional c d . e) '())
2227 creates a procedure with fixed arguments a and b, optional arguments c
2228 and d, and rest argument e. If the optional arguments are omitted
2229 in a call, the variables for them are unbound in the procedure. This
2230 can be checked with the bound? macro.
2232 lambda* can also take keyword arguments. For example, a procedure
2234 (lambda* (#&key xyzzy larch) '())
2235 can be called with any of the argument lists (#:xyzzy 11)
2236 (#:larch 13) (#:larch 42 #:xyzzy 19) (). Whichever arguments
2237 are given as keywords are bound to values.
2239 Optional and keyword arguments can also be given default values
2240 which they take on when they are not present in a call, by giving a
2241 two-item list in place of an optional argument, for example in:
2242 (lambda* (foo #&optional (bar 42) #&key (baz 73)) (list foo bar baz))
2243 foo is a fixed argument, bar is an optional argument with default
2244 value 42, and baz is a keyword argument with default value 73.
2245 Default value expressions are not evaluated unless they are needed
2246 and until the procedure is called.
2248 lambda* now supports two more special parameter list keywords.
2250 lambda*-defined procedures now throw an error by default if a
2251 keyword other than one of those specified is found in the actual
2252 passed arguments. However, specifying #&allow-other-keys
2253 immediately after the kyword argument declarations restores the
2254 previous behavior of ignoring unknown keywords. lambda* also now
2255 guarantees that if the same keyword is passed more than once, the
2256 last one passed is the one that takes effect. For example,
2257 ((lambda* (#&key (heads 0) (tails 0)) (display (list heads tails)))
2258 #:heads 37 #:tails 42 #:heads 99)
2259 would result in (99 47) being displayed.
2261 #&rest is also now provided as a synonym for the dotted syntax rest
2262 argument. The argument lists (a . b) and (a #&rest b) are equivalent in
2263 all respects to lambda*. This is provided for more similarity to DSSSL,
2264 MIT-Scheme and Kawa among others, as well as for refugees from other
2267 Further documentation may be found in the optargs.scm file itself.
2269 The optional argument module also exports the macros `let-optional',
2270 `let-optional*', `let-keywords', `let-keywords*' and `bound?'. These
2271 are not documented here because they may be removed in the future, but
2272 full documentation is still available in optargs.scm.
2274 ** New syntax: and-let*
2275 Guile now supports the `and-let*' form, described in the draft SRFI-2.
2277 Syntax: (land* (<clause> ...) <body> ...)
2278 Each <clause> should have one of the following forms:
2279 (<variable> <expression>)
2282 Each <variable> or <bound-variable> should be an identifier. Each
2283 <expression> should be a valid expression. The <body> should be a
2284 possibly empty sequence of expressions, like the <body> of a
2287 Semantics: A LAND* expression is evaluated by evaluating the
2288 <expression> or <bound-variable> of each of the <clause>s from
2289 left to right. The value of the first <expression> or
2290 <bound-variable> that evaluates to a false value is returned; the
2291 remaining <expression>s and <bound-variable>s are not evaluated.
2292 The <body> forms are evaluated iff all the <expression>s and
2293 <bound-variable>s evaluate to true values.
2295 The <expression>s and the <body> are evaluated in an environment
2296 binding each <variable> of the preceding (<variable> <expression>)
2297 clauses to the value of the <expression>. Later bindings
2298 shadow earlier bindings.
2300 Guile's and-let* macro was contributed by Michael Livshin.
2302 ** New sorting functions
2304 *** New function: sorted? SEQUENCE LESS?
2305 Returns `#t' when the sequence argument is in non-decreasing order
2306 according to LESS? (that is, there is no adjacent pair `... x y
2307 ...' for which `(less? y x)').
2309 Returns `#f' when the sequence contains at least one out-of-order
2310 pair. It is an error if the sequence is neither a list nor a
2313 *** New function: merge LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
2314 LIST1 and LIST2 are sorted lists.
2315 Returns the sorted list of all elements in LIST1 and LIST2.
2317 Assume that the elements a and b1 in LIST1 and b2 in LIST2 are "equal"
2318 in the sense that (LESS? x y) --> #f for x, y in {a, b1, b2},
2319 and that a < b1 in LIST1. Then a < b1 < b2 in the result.
2320 (Here "<" should read "comes before".)
2322 *** New procedure: merge! LIST1 LIST2 LESS?
2323 Merges two lists, re-using the pairs of LIST1 and LIST2 to build
2324 the result. If the code is compiled, and LESS? constructs no new
2325 pairs, no pairs at all will be allocated. The first pair of the
2326 result will be either the first pair of LIST1 or the first pair of
2329 *** New function: sort SEQUENCE LESS?
2330 Accepts either a list or a vector, and returns a new sequence
2331 which is sorted. The new sequence is the same type as the input.
2332 Always `(sorted? (sort sequence less?) less?)'. The original
2333 sequence is not altered in any way. The new sequence shares its
2334 elements with the old one; no elements are copied.
2336 *** New procedure: sort! SEQUENCE LESS
2337 Returns its sorted result in the original boxes. No new storage is
2338 allocated at all. Proper usage: (set! slist (sort! slist <))
2340 *** New function: stable-sort SEQUENCE LESS?
2341 Similar to `sort' but stable. That is, if "equal" elements are
2342 ordered a < b in the original sequence, they will have the same order
2345 *** New function: stable-sort! SEQUENCE LESS?
2346 Similar to `sort!' but stable.
2347 Uses temporary storage when sorting vectors.
2349 *** New functions: sort-list, sort-list!
2350 Added for compatibility with scsh.
2352 ** New built-in random number support
2354 *** New function: random N [STATE]
2355 Accepts a positive integer or real N and returns a number of the
2356 same type between zero (inclusive) and N (exclusive). The values
2357 returned have a uniform distribution.
2359 The optional argument STATE must be of the type produced by
2360 `copy-random-state' or `seed->random-state'. It defaults to the value
2361 of the variable `*random-state*'. This object is used to maintain the
2362 state of the pseudo-random-number generator and is altered as a side
2363 effect of the `random' operation.
2365 *** New variable: *random-state*
2366 Holds a data structure that encodes the internal state of the
2367 random-number generator that `random' uses by default. The nature
2368 of this data structure is implementation-dependent. It may be
2369 printed out and successfully read back in, but may or may not
2370 function correctly as a random-number state object in another
2373 *** New function: copy-random-state [STATE]
2374 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
2375 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
2376 If argument STATE is given, a copy of it is returned. Otherwise a
2377 copy of `*random-state*' is returned.
2379 *** New function: seed->random-state SEED
2380 Returns a new object of type suitable for use as the value of the
2381 variable `*random-state*' and as a second argument to `random'.
2382 SEED is a string or a number. A new state is generated and
2383 initialized using SEED.
2385 *** New function: random:uniform [STATE]
2386 Returns an uniformly distributed inexact real random number in the
2387 range between 0 and 1.
2389 *** New procedure: random:solid-sphere! VECT [STATE]
2390 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose
2391 squares is less than 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in
2392 space of dimension N = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are
2393 uniformly distributed within the unit N-shere. The sum of the
2394 squares of the numbers is returned. VECT can be either a vector
2395 or a uniform vector of doubles.
2397 *** New procedure: random:hollow-sphere! VECT [STATE]
2398 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers the sum of whose squares
2399 is equal to 1.0. Thinking of VECT as coordinates in space of
2400 dimension n = `(vector-length VECT)', the coordinates are uniformly
2401 distributed over the surface of the unit n-shere. VECT can be either
2402 a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
2404 *** New function: random:normal [STATE]
2405 Returns an inexact real in a normal distribution with mean 0 and
2406 standard deviation 1. For a normal distribution with mean M and
2407 standard deviation D use `(+ M (* D (random:normal)))'.
2409 *** New procedure: random:normal-vector! VECT [STATE]
2410 Fills VECT with inexact real random numbers which are independent and
2411 standard normally distributed (i.e., with mean 0 and variance 1).
2412 VECT can be either a vector or a uniform vector of doubles.
2414 *** New function: random:exp STATE
2415 Returns an inexact real in an exponential distribution with mean 1.
2416 For an exponential distribution with mean U use (* U (random:exp)).
2418 ** The range of logand, logior, logxor, logtest, and logbit? have changed.
2420 These functions now operate on numbers in the range of a C unsigned
2423 These functions used to operate on numbers in the range of a C signed
2424 long; however, this seems inappropriate, because Guile integers don't
2427 ** New function: make-guardian
2428 This is an implementation of guardians as described in
2429 R. Kent Dybvig, Carl Bruggeman, and David Eby (1993) "Guardians in a
2430 Generation-Based Garbage Collector" ACM SIGPLAN Conference on
2431 Programming Language Design and Implementation, June 1993
2432 ftp://ftp.cs.indiana.edu/pub/scheme-repository/doc/pubs/guardians.ps.gz
2434 ** New functions: delq1!, delv1!, delete1!
2435 These procedures behave similar to delq! and friends but delete only
2436 one object if at all.
2438 ** New function: unread-string STRING PORT
2439 Unread STRING to PORT, that is, push it back onto the port so that
2440 next read operation will work on the pushed back characters.
2442 ** unread-char can now be called multiple times
2443 If unread-char is called multiple times, the unread characters will be
2444 read again in last-in first-out order.
2446 ** the procedures uniform-array-read! and uniform-array-write! now
2447 work on any kind of port, not just ports which are open on a file.
2449 ** Now 'l' in a port mode requests line buffering.
2451 ** The procedure truncate-file now works on string ports as well
2452 as file ports. If the size argument is omitted, the current
2453 file position is used.
2455 ** new procedure: seek PORT/FDES OFFSET WHENCE
2456 The arguments are the same as for the old fseek procedure, but it
2457 works on string ports as well as random-access file ports.
2459 ** the fseek procedure now works on string ports, since it has been
2460 redefined using seek.
2462 ** the setvbuf procedure now uses a default size if mode is _IOFBF and
2463 size is not supplied.
2465 ** the newline procedure no longer flushes the port if it's not
2466 line-buffered: previously it did if it was the current output port.
2468 ** open-pipe and close-pipe are no longer primitive procedures, but
2469 an emulation can be obtained using `(use-modules (ice-9 popen))'.
2471 ** the freopen procedure has been removed.
2473 ** new procedure: drain-input PORT
2474 Drains PORT's read buffers (including any pushed-back characters)
2475 and returns the contents as a single string.
2477 ** New function: map-in-order PROC LIST1 LIST2 ...
2478 Version of `map' which guarantees that the procedure is applied to the
2479 lists in serial order.
2481 ** Renamed `serial-array-copy!' and `serial-array-map!' to
2482 `array-copy-in-order!' and `array-map-in-order!'. The old names are
2483 now obsolete and will go away in release 1.5.
2485 ** New syntax: collect BODY1 ...
2486 Version of `begin' which returns a list of the results of the body
2487 forms instead of the result of the last body form. In contrast to
2488 `begin', `collect' allows an empty body.
2490 ** New functions: read-history FILENAME, write-history FILENAME
2491 Read/write command line history from/to file. Returns #t on success
2492 and #f if an error occured.
2494 ** `ls' and `lls' in module (ice-9 ls) now handle no arguments.
2496 These procedures return a list of definitions available in the specified
2497 argument, a relative module reference. In the case of no argument,
2498 `(current-module)' is now consulted for definitions to return, instead
2499 of simply returning #f, the former behavior.
2501 ** The #/ syntax for lists is no longer supported.
2503 Earlier versions of Scheme accepted this syntax, but printed a
2506 ** Guile no longer consults the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable.
2508 Instead, you should set GUILE_LOAD_PATH to tell Guile where to find
2511 * Changes to the gh_ interface
2515 Now takes a second argument which is the result array. If this
2516 pointer is NULL, a new array is malloced (the old behaviour).
2518 ** gh_chars2byvect, gh_shorts2svect, gh_floats2fvect, gh_scm2chars,
2519 gh_scm2shorts, gh_scm2longs, gh_scm2floats
2523 * Changes to the scm_ interface
2525 ** Function: scm_make_named_hook (char* name, int n_args)
2527 Creates a hook in the same way as make-hook above but also
2528 binds a variable named NAME to it.
2530 This is the typical way of creating a hook from C code.
2532 Currently, the variable is created in the "current" module. This
2533 might change when we get the new module system.
2535 ** The smob interface
2537 The interface for creating smobs has changed. For documentation, see
2538 data-rep.info (made from guile-core/doc/data-rep.texi).
2540 *** Deprecated function: SCM scm_newsmob (scm_smobfuns *)
2542 >>> This function will be removed in 1.3.4. <<<
2546 *** Function: SCM scm_make_smob_type (const char *name, scm_sizet size)
2547 This function adds a new smob type, named NAME, with instance size
2548 SIZE to the system. The return value is a tag that is used in
2549 creating instances of the type. If SIZE is 0, then no memory will
2550 be allocated when instances of the smob are created, and nothing
2551 will be freed by the default free function.
2553 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_mark (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
2554 This function sets the smob marking procedure for the smob type
2555 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
2556 `scm_make_smob_type'.
2558 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_free (long tc, SCM (*mark) (SCM))
2559 This function sets the smob freeing procedure for the smob type
2560 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
2561 `scm_make_smob_type'.
2563 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_print (tc, print)
2565 - Function: void scm_set_smob_print (long tc,
2566 scm_sizet (*print) (SCM,
2570 This function sets the smob printing procedure for the smob type
2571 specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
2572 `scm_make_smob_type'.
2574 *** Function: void scm_set_smob_equalp (long tc, SCM (*equalp) (SCM, SCM))
2575 This function sets the smob equality-testing predicate for the
2576 smob type specified by the tag TC. TC is the tag returned by
2577 `scm_make_smob_type'.
2579 *** Macro: void SCM_NEWSMOB (SCM var, long tc, void *data)
2580 Make VALUE contain a smob instance of the type with type code TC and
2581 smob data DATA. VALUE must be previously declared as C type `SCM'.
2583 *** Macro: fn_returns SCM_RETURN_NEWSMOB (long tc, void *data)
2584 This macro expands to a block of code that creates a smob instance
2585 of the type with type code TC and smob data DATA, and returns that
2586 `SCM' value. It should be the last piece of code in a block.
2588 ** The interfaces for using I/O ports and implementing port types
2589 (ptobs) have changed significantly. The new interface is based on
2590 shared access to buffers and a new set of ptob procedures.
2592 *** scm_newptob has been removed
2596 *** Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (type_name, fill_buffer, write_flush)
2598 - Function: SCM scm_make_port_type (char *type_name,
2599 int (*fill_buffer) (SCM port),
2600 void (*write_flush) (SCM port));
2602 Similarly to the new smob interface, there is a set of function
2603 setters by which the user can customize the behaviour of his port
2604 type. See ports.h (scm_set_port_XXX).
2606 ** scm_strport_to_string: New function: creates a new string from
2607 a string port's buffer.
2609 ** Plug in interface for random number generators
2610 The variable `scm_the_rng' in random.c contains a value and three
2611 function pointers which together define the current random number
2612 generator being used by the Scheme level interface and the random
2613 number library functions.
2615 The user is free to replace the default generator with the generator
2618 *** Variable: size_t scm_the_rng.rstate_size
2619 The size of the random state type used by the current RNG
2622 *** Function: unsigned long scm_the_rng.random_bits (scm_rstate *STATE)
2623 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
2625 *** Function: void scm_the_rng.init_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE, chars *S, int N)
2626 Seed random state STATE using string S of length N.
2628 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_the_rng.copy_rstate (scm_rstate *STATE)
2629 Given random state STATE, return a malloced copy.
2632 The default RNG is the MWC (Multiply With Carry) random number
2633 generator described by George Marsaglia at the Department of
2634 Statistics and Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, The
2635 Florida State University (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo).
2637 It uses 64 bits, has a period of 4578426017172946943 (4.6e18), and
2638 passes all tests in the DIEHARD test suite
2639 (http://stat.fsu.edu/~geo/diehard.html). The generation of 32 bits
2640 costs one multiply and one add on platforms which either supports long
2641 longs (gcc does this on most systems) or have 64 bit longs. The cost
2642 is four multiply on other systems but this can be optimized by writing
2643 scm_i_uniform32 in assembler.
2645 These functions are provided through the scm_the_rng interface for use
2646 by libguile and the application.
2648 *** Function: unsigned long scm_i_uniform32 (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
2649 Given the random STATE, return 32 random bits.
2650 Don't use this function directly. Instead go through the plugin
2651 interface (see "Plug in interface" above).
2653 *** Function: void scm_i_init_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE, char *SEED, int N)
2654 Initialize STATE using SEED of length N.
2656 *** Function: scm_i_rstate *scm_i_copy_rstate (scm_i_rstate *STATE)
2657 Return a malloc:ed copy of STATE. This function can easily be re-used
2658 in the interfaces to other RNGs.
2660 ** Random number library functions
2661 These functions use the current RNG through the scm_the_rng interface.
2662 It might be a good idea to use these functions from your C code so
2663 that only one random generator is used by all code in your program.
2665 The default random state is stored in:
2667 *** Variable: SCM scm_var_random_state
2668 Contains the vcell of the Scheme variable "*random-state*" which is
2669 used as default state by all random number functions in the Scheme
2674 double x = scm_c_uniform01 (SCM_RSTATE (SCM_CDR (scm_var_random_state)));
2676 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_default_rstate (void)
2677 This is a convenience function which returns the value of
2678 scm_var_random_state. An error message is generated if this value
2679 isn't a random state.
2681 *** Function: scm_rstate *scm_c_make_rstate (char *SEED, int LENGTH)
2682 Make a new random state from the string SEED of length LENGTH.
2684 It is generally not a good idea to use multiple random states in a
2685 program. While subsequent random numbers generated from one random
2686 state are guaranteed to be reasonably independent, there is no such
2687 guarantee for numbers generated from different random states.
2689 *** Macro: unsigned long scm_c_uniform32 (scm_rstate *STATE)
2690 Return 32 random bits.
2692 *** Function: double scm_c_uniform01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
2693 Return a sample from the uniform(0,1) distribution.
2695 *** Function: double scm_c_normal01 (scm_rstate *STATE)
2696 Return a sample from the normal(0,1) distribution.
2698 *** Function: double scm_c_exp1 (scm_rstate *STATE)
2699 Return a sample from the exp(1) distribution.
2701 *** Function: unsigned long scm_c_random (scm_rstate *STATE, unsigned long M)
2702 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
2704 *** Function: SCM scm_c_random_bignum (scm_rstate *STATE, SCM M)
2705 Return a sample from the discrete uniform(0,M) distribution.
2706 M must be a bignum object. The returned value may be an INUM.
2710 Changes in Guile 1.3 (released Monday, October 19, 1998):
2712 * Changes to the distribution
2714 ** We renamed the SCHEME_LOAD_PATH environment variable to GUILE_LOAD_PATH.
2715 To avoid conflicts, programs should name environment variables after
2716 themselves, except when there's a common practice establishing some
2719 For now, Guile supports both GUILE_LOAD_PATH and SCHEME_LOAD_PATH,
2720 giving the former precedence, and printing a warning message if the
2721 latter is set. Guile 1.4 will not recognize SCHEME_LOAD_PATH at all.
2723 ** The header files related to multi-byte characters have been removed.
2724 They were: libguile/extchrs.h and libguile/mbstrings.h. Any C code
2725 which referred to these explicitly will probably need to be rewritten,
2726 since the support for the variant string types has been removed; see
2729 ** The header files append.h and sequences.h have been removed. These
2730 files implemented non-R4RS operations which would encourage
2731 non-portable programming style and less easy-to-read code.
2733 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
2735 ** New procedures have been added to implement a "batch mode":
2737 *** Function: batch-mode?
2739 Returns a boolean indicating whether the interpreter is in batch
2742 *** Function: set-batch-mode?! ARG
2744 If ARG is true, switches the interpreter to batch mode. The `#f'
2745 case has not been implemented.
2747 ** Guile now provides full command-line editing, when run interactively.
2748 To use this feature, you must have the readline library installed.
2749 The Guile build process will notice it, and automatically include
2752 The readline library is available via anonymous FTP from any GNU
2753 mirror site; the canonical location is "ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu".
2755 ** the-last-stack is now a fluid.
2757 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
2759 ** You can now use the `guile-config' utility to build programs that use Guile.
2761 Guile now includes a command-line utility called `guile-config', which
2762 can provide information about how to compile and link programs that
2765 *** `guile-config compile' prints any C compiler flags needed to use Guile.
2766 You should include this command's output on the command line you use
2767 to compile C or C++ code that #includes the Guile header files. It's
2768 usually just a `-I' flag to help the compiler find the Guile headers.
2771 *** `guile-config link' prints any linker flags necessary to link with Guile.
2773 This command writes to its standard output a list of flags which you
2774 must pass to the linker to link your code against the Guile library.
2775 The flags include '-lguile' itself, any other libraries the Guile
2776 library depends upon, and any `-L' flags needed to help the linker
2777 find those libraries.
2779 For example, here is a Makefile rule that builds a program named 'foo'
2780 from the object files ${FOO_OBJECTS}, and links them against Guile:
2783 ${CC} ${CFLAGS} ${FOO_OBJECTS} `guile-config link` -o foo
2785 Previous Guile releases recommended that you use autoconf to detect
2786 which of a predefined set of libraries were present on your system.
2787 It is more robust to use `guile-config', since it records exactly which
2788 libraries the installed Guile library requires.
2790 This was originally called `build-guile', but was renamed to
2791 `guile-config' before Guile 1.3 was released, to be consistent with
2792 the analogous script for the GTK+ GUI toolkit, which is called
2796 ** Use the GUILE_FLAGS macro in your configure.in file to find Guile.
2798 If you are using the GNU autoconf package to configure your program,
2799 you can use the GUILE_FLAGS autoconf macro to call `guile-config'
2800 (described above) and gather the necessary values for use in your
2803 The GUILE_FLAGS macro expands to configure script code which runs the
2804 `guile-config' script, to find out where Guile's header files and
2805 libraries are installed. It sets two variables, marked for
2806 substitution, as by AC_SUBST.
2808 GUILE_CFLAGS --- flags to pass to a C or C++ compiler to build
2809 code that uses Guile header files. This is almost always just a
2812 GUILE_LDFLAGS --- flags to pass to the linker to link a
2813 program against Guile. This includes `-lguile' for the Guile
2814 library itself, any libraries that Guile itself requires (like
2815 -lqthreads), and so on. It may also include a -L flag to tell the
2816 compiler where to find the libraries.
2818 GUILE_FLAGS is defined in the file guile.m4, in the top-level
2819 directory of the Guile distribution. You can copy it into your
2820 package's aclocal.m4 file, and then use it in your configure.in file.
2822 If you are using the `aclocal' program, distributed with GNU automake,
2823 to maintain your aclocal.m4 file, the Guile installation process
2824 installs guile.m4 where aclocal will find it. All you need to do is
2825 use GUILE_FLAGS in your configure.in file, and then run `aclocal';
2826 this will copy the definition of GUILE_FLAGS into your aclocal.m4
2830 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
2832 ** Multi-byte strings have been removed, as have multi-byte and wide
2833 ports. We felt that these were the wrong approach to
2834 internationalization support.
2836 ** New function: readline [PROMPT]
2837 Read a line from the terminal, and allow the user to edit it,
2838 prompting with PROMPT. READLINE provides a large set of Emacs-like
2839 editing commands, lets the user recall previously typed lines, and
2840 works on almost every kind of terminal, including dumb terminals.
2842 READLINE assumes that the cursor is at the beginning of the line when
2843 it is invoked. Thus, you can't print a prompt yourself, and then call
2844 READLINE; you need to package up your prompt as a string, pass it to
2845 the function, and let READLINE print the prompt itself. This is
2846 because READLINE needs to know the prompt's screen width.
2848 For Guile to provide this function, you must have the readline
2849 library, version 2.1 or later, installed on your system. Readline is
2850 available via anonymous FTP from prep.ai.mit.edu in pub/gnu, or from
2851 any GNU mirror site.
2853 See also ADD-HISTORY function.
2855 ** New function: add-history STRING
2856 Add STRING as the most recent line in the history used by the READLINE
2857 command. READLINE does not add lines to the history itself; you must
2858 call ADD-HISTORY to make previous input available to the user.
2860 ** The behavior of the read-line function has changed.
2862 This function now uses standard C library functions to read the line,
2863 for speed. This means that it doesn not respect the value of
2864 scm-line-incrementors; it assumes that lines are delimited with
2867 (Note that this is read-line, the function that reads a line of text
2868 from a port, not readline, the function that reads a line from a
2869 terminal, providing full editing capabilities.)
2871 ** New module (ice-9 getopt-gnu-style): Parse command-line arguments.
2873 This module provides some simple argument parsing. It exports one
2876 Function: getopt-gnu-style ARG-LS
2877 Parse a list of program arguments into an alist of option
2880 Each item in the list of program arguments is examined to see if
2881 it meets the syntax of a GNU long-named option. An argument like
2882 `--MUMBLE' produces an element of the form (MUMBLE . #t) in the
2883 returned alist, where MUMBLE is a keyword object with the same
2884 name as the argument. An argument like `--MUMBLE=FROB' produces
2885 an element of the form (MUMBLE . FROB), where FROB is a string.
2887 As a special case, the returned alist also contains a pair whose
2888 car is the symbol `rest'. The cdr of this pair is a list
2889 containing all the items in the argument list that are not options
2890 of the form mentioned above.
2892 The argument `--' is treated specially: all items in the argument
2893 list appearing after such an argument are not examined, and are
2894 returned in the special `rest' list.
2896 This function does not parse normal single-character switches.
2897 You will need to parse them out of the `rest' list yourself.
2899 ** The read syntax for byte vectors and short vectors has changed.
2901 Instead of #bytes(...), write #y(...).
2903 Instead of #short(...), write #h(...).
2905 This may seem nutty, but, like the other uniform vectors, byte vectors
2906 and short vectors want to have the same print and read syntax (and,
2907 more basic, want to have read syntax!). Changing the read syntax to
2908 use multiple characters after the hash sign breaks with the
2909 conventions used in R5RS and the conventions used for the other
2910 uniform vectors. It also introduces complexity in the current reader,
2911 both on the C and Scheme levels. (The Right solution is probably to
2912 change the syntax and prototypes for uniform vectors entirely.)
2915 ** The new module (ice-9 session) provides useful interactive functions.
2917 *** New procedure: (apropos REGEXP OPTION ...)
2919 Display a list of top-level variables whose names match REGEXP, and
2920 the modules they are imported from. Each OPTION should be one of the
2923 value --- Show the value of each matching variable.
2924 shadow --- Show bindings shadowed by subsequently imported modules.
2925 full --- Same as both `shadow' and `value'.
2929 guile> (apropos "trace" 'full)
2930 debug: trace #<procedure trace args>
2931 debug: untrace #<procedure untrace args>
2932 the-scm-module: display-backtrace #<compiled-closure #<primitive-procedure gsubr-apply>>
2933 the-scm-module: before-backtrace-hook ()
2934 the-scm-module: backtrace #<primitive-procedure backtrace>
2935 the-scm-module: after-backtrace-hook ()
2936 the-scm-module: has-shown-backtrace-hint? #f
2939 ** There are new functions and syntax for working with macros.
2941 Guile implements macros as a special object type. Any variable whose
2942 top-level binding is a macro object acts as a macro. The macro object
2943 specifies how the expression should be transformed before evaluation.
2945 *** Macro objects now print in a reasonable way, resembling procedures.
2947 *** New function: (macro? OBJ)
2948 True iff OBJ is a macro object.
2950 *** New function: (primitive-macro? OBJ)
2951 Like (macro? OBJ), but true only if OBJ is one of the Guile primitive
2952 macro transformers, implemented in eval.c rather than Scheme code.
2954 Why do we have this function?
2955 - For symmetry with procedure? and primitive-procedure?,
2956 - to allow custom print procedures to tell whether a macro is
2957 primitive, and display it differently, and
2958 - to allow compilers and user-written evaluators to distinguish
2959 builtin special forms from user-defined ones, which could be
2962 *** New function: (macro-type OBJ)
2963 Return a value indicating what kind of macro OBJ is. Possible return
2966 The symbol `syntax' --- a macro created by procedure->syntax.
2967 The symbol `macro' --- a macro created by procedure->macro.
2968 The symbol `macro!' --- a macro created by procedure->memoizing-macro.
2969 The boolean #f --- if OBJ is not a macro object.
2971 *** New function: (macro-name MACRO)
2972 Return the name of the macro object MACRO's procedure, as returned by
2975 *** New function: (macro-transformer MACRO)
2976 Return the transformer procedure for MACRO.
2978 *** New syntax: (use-syntax MODULE ... TRANSFORMER)
2980 Specify a new macro expander to use in the current module. Each
2981 MODULE is a module name, with the same meaning as in the `use-modules'
2982 form; each named module's exported bindings are added to the current
2983 top-level environment. TRANSFORMER is an expression evaluated in the
2984 resulting environment which must yield a procedure to use as the
2985 module's eval transformer: every expression evaluated in this module
2986 is passed to this function, and the result passed to the Guile
2989 *** macro-eval! is removed. Use local-eval instead.
2991 ** Some magic has been added to the printer to better handle user
2992 written printing routines (like record printers, closure printers).
2994 The problem is that these user written routines must have access to
2995 the current `print-state' to be able to handle fancy things like
2996 detection of circular references. These print-states have to be
2997 passed to the builtin printing routines (display, write, etc) to
2998 properly continue the print chain.
3000 We didn't want to change all existing print code so that it
3001 explicitly passes thru a print state in addition to a port. Instead,
3002 we extented the possible values that the builtin printing routines
3003 accept as a `port'. In addition to a normal port, they now also take
3004 a pair of a normal port and a print-state. Printing will go to the
3005 port and the print-state will be used to control the detection of
3006 circular references, etc. If the builtin function does not care for a
3007 print-state, it is simply ignored.
3009 User written callbacks are now called with such a pair as their
3010 `port', but because every function now accepts this pair as a PORT
3011 argument, you don't have to worry about that. In fact, it is probably
3012 safest to not check for these pairs.
3014 However, it is sometimes necessary to continue a print chain on a
3015 different port, for example to get a intermediate string
3016 representation of the printed value, mangle that string somehow, and
3017 then to finally print the mangled string. Use the new function
3019 inherit-print-state OLD-PORT NEW-PORT
3021 for this. It constructs a new `port' that prints to NEW-PORT but
3022 inherits the print-state of OLD-PORT.
3024 ** struct-vtable-offset renamed to vtable-offset-user
3026 ** New constants: vtable-index-layout, vtable-index-vtable, vtable-index-printer
3028 ** There is now a third optional argument to make-vtable-vtable
3029 (and fourth to make-struct) when constructing new types (vtables).
3030 This argument initializes field vtable-index-printer of the vtable.
3032 ** The detection of circular references has been extended to structs.
3033 That is, a structure that -- in the process of being printed -- prints
3034 itself does not lead to infinite recursion.
3036 ** There is now some basic support for fluids. Please read
3037 "libguile/fluid.h" to find out more. It is accessible from Scheme with
3038 the following functions and macros:
3040 Function: make-fluid
3042 Create a new fluid object. Fluids are not special variables or
3043 some other extension to the semantics of Scheme, but rather
3044 ordinary Scheme objects. You can store them into variables (that
3045 are still lexically scoped, of course) or into any other place you
3046 like. Every fluid has a initial value of `#f'.
3048 Function: fluid? OBJ
3050 Test whether OBJ is a fluid.
3052 Function: fluid-ref FLUID
3053 Function: fluid-set! FLUID VAL
3055 Access/modify the fluid FLUID. Modifications are only visible
3056 within the current dynamic root (that includes threads).
3058 Function: with-fluids* FLUIDS VALUES THUNK
3060 FLUIDS is a list of fluids and VALUES a corresponding list of
3061 values for these fluids. Before THUNK gets called the values are
3062 installed in the fluids and the old values of the fluids are
3063 saved in the VALUES list. When the flow of control leaves THUNK
3064 or reenters it, the values get swapped again. You might think of
3065 this as a `safe-fluid-excursion'. Note that the VALUES list is
3066 modified by `with-fluids*'.
3068 Macro: with-fluids ((FLUID VALUE) ...) FORM ...
3070 The same as `with-fluids*' but with a different syntax. It looks
3071 just like `let', but both FLUID and VALUE are evaluated. Remember,
3072 fluids are not special variables but ordinary objects. FLUID
3073 should evaluate to a fluid.
3075 ** Changes to system call interfaces:
3077 *** close-port, close-input-port and close-output-port now return a
3078 boolean instead of an `unspecified' object. #t means that the port
3079 was successfully closed, while #f means it was already closed. It is
3080 also now possible for these procedures to raise an exception if an
3081 error occurs (some errors from write can be delayed until close.)
3083 *** the first argument to chmod, fcntl, ftell and fseek can now be a
3086 *** the third argument to fcntl is now optional.
3088 *** the first argument to chown can now be a file descriptor or a port.
3090 *** the argument to stat can now be a port.
3092 *** The following new procedures have been added (most use scsh
3095 *** procedure: close PORT/FD
3096 Similar to close-port (*note close-port: Closing Ports.), but also
3097 works on file descriptors. A side effect of closing a file
3098 descriptor is that any ports using that file descriptor are moved
3099 to a different file descriptor and have their revealed counts set
3102 *** procedure: port->fdes PORT
3103 Returns the integer file descriptor underlying PORT. As a side
3104 effect the revealed count of PORT is incremented.
3106 *** procedure: fdes->ports FDES
3107 Returns a list of existing ports which have FDES as an underlying
3108 file descriptor, without changing their revealed counts.
3110 *** procedure: fdes->inport FDES
3111 Returns an existing input port which has FDES as its underlying
3112 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
3113 Otherwise, returns a new input port with a revealed count of 1.
3115 *** procedure: fdes->outport FDES
3116 Returns an existing output port which has FDES as its underlying
3117 file descriptor, if one exists, and increments its revealed count.
3118 Otherwise, returns a new output port with a revealed count of 1.
3120 The next group of procedures perform a `dup2' system call, if NEWFD
3121 (an integer) is supplied, otherwise a `dup'. The file descriptor to be
3122 duplicated can be supplied as an integer or contained in a port. The
3123 type of value returned varies depending on which procedure is used.
3125 All procedures also have the side effect when performing `dup2' that
3126 any ports using NEWFD are moved to a different file descriptor and have
3127 their revealed counts set to zero.
3129 *** procedure: dup->fdes PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3130 Returns an integer file descriptor.
3132 *** procedure: dup->inport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3133 Returns a new input port using the new file descriptor.
3135 *** procedure: dup->outport PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3136 Returns a new output port using the new file descriptor.
3138 *** procedure: dup PORT/FD [NEWFD]
3139 Returns a new port if PORT/FD is a port, with the same mode as the
3140 supplied port, otherwise returns an integer file descriptor.
3142 *** procedure: dup->port PORT/FD MODE [NEWFD]
3143 Returns a new port using the new file descriptor. MODE supplies a
3144 mode string for the port (*note open-file: File Ports.).
3146 *** procedure: setenv NAME VALUE
3147 Modifies the environment of the current process, which is also the
3148 default environment inherited by child processes.
3150 If VALUE is `#f', then NAME is removed from the environment.
3151 Otherwise, the string NAME=VALUE is added to the environment,
3152 replacing any existing string with name matching NAME.
3154 The return value is unspecified.
3156 *** procedure: truncate-file OBJ SIZE
3157 Truncates the file referred to by OBJ to at most SIZE bytes. OBJ
3158 can be a string containing a file name or an integer file
3159 descriptor or port open for output on the file. The underlying
3160 system calls are `truncate' and `ftruncate'.
3162 The return value is unspecified.
3164 *** procedure: setvbuf PORT MODE [SIZE]
3165 Set the buffering mode for PORT. MODE can be:
3173 block buffered, using a newly allocated buffer of SIZE bytes.
3174 However if SIZE is zero or unspecified, the port will be made
3177 This procedure should not be used after I/O has been performed with
3180 Ports are usually block buffered by default, with a default buffer
3181 size. Procedures e.g., *Note open-file: File Ports, which accept a
3182 mode string allow `0' to be added to request an unbuffered port.
3184 *** procedure: fsync PORT/FD
3185 Copies any unwritten data for the specified output file descriptor
3186 to disk. If PORT/FD is a port, its buffer is flushed before the
3187 underlying file descriptor is fsync'd. The return value is
3190 *** procedure: open-fdes PATH FLAGS [MODES]
3191 Similar to `open' but returns a file descriptor instead of a port.
3193 *** procedure: execle PATH ENV [ARG] ...
3194 Similar to `execl', but the environment of the new process is
3195 specified by ENV, which must be a list of strings as returned by
3196 the `environ' procedure.
3198 This procedure is currently implemented using the `execve' system
3199 call, but we call it `execle' because of its Scheme calling
3202 *** procedure: strerror ERRNO
3203 Returns the Unix error message corresponding to ERRNO, an integer.
3205 *** procedure: primitive-exit [STATUS]
3206 Terminate the current process without unwinding the Scheme stack.
3207 This is would typically be useful after a fork. The exit status
3208 is STATUS if supplied, otherwise zero.
3210 *** procedure: times
3211 Returns an object with information about real and processor time.
3212 The following procedures accept such an object as an argument and
3213 return a selected component:
3216 The current real time, expressed as time units relative to an
3220 The CPU time units used by the calling process.
3223 The CPU time units used by the system on behalf of the
3227 The CPU time units used by terminated child processes of the
3228 calling process, whose status has been collected (e.g., using
3232 Similarly, the CPU times units used by the system on behalf of
3233 terminated child processes.
3235 ** Removed: list-length
3236 ** Removed: list-append, list-append!
3237 ** Removed: list-reverse, list-reverse!
3239 ** array-map renamed to array-map!
3241 ** serial-array-map renamed to serial-array-map!
3243 ** catch doesn't take #f as first argument any longer
3245 Previously, it was possible to pass #f instead of a key to `catch'.
3246 That would cause `catch' to pass a jump buffer object to the procedure
3247 passed as second argument. The procedure could then use this jump
3248 buffer objekt as an argument to throw.
3250 This mechanism has been removed since its utility doesn't motivate the
3251 extra complexity it introduces.
3253 ** The `#/' notation for lists now provokes a warning message from Guile.
3254 This syntax will be removed from Guile in the near future.
3256 To disable the warning message, set the GUILE_HUSH environment
3257 variable to any non-empty value.
3259 ** The newline character now prints as `#\newline', following the
3260 normal Scheme notation, not `#\nl'.
3262 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3264 ** The gh_enter function now takes care of loading the Guile startup files.
3265 gh_enter works by calling scm_boot_guile; see the remarks below.
3267 ** Function: void gh_write (SCM x)
3269 Write the printed representation of the scheme object x to the current
3270 output port. Corresponds to the scheme level `write'.
3272 ** gh_list_length renamed to gh_length.
3274 ** vector handling routines
3276 Several major changes. In particular, gh_vector() now resembles
3277 (vector ...) (with a caveat -- see manual), and gh_make_vector() now
3278 exists and behaves like (make-vector ...). gh_vset() and gh_vref()
3279 have been renamed gh_vector_set_x() and gh_vector_ref(). Some missing
3280 vector-related gh_ functions have been implemented.
3282 ** pair and list routines
3284 Implemented several of the R4RS pair and list functions that were
3287 ** gh_scm2doubles, gh_doubles2scm, gh_doubles2dvect
3289 New function. Converts double arrays back and forth between Scheme
3292 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3294 ** The function scm_boot_guile now takes care of loading the startup files.
3296 Guile's primary initialization function, scm_boot_guile, now takes
3297 care of loading `boot-9.scm', in the `ice-9' module, to initialize
3298 Guile, define the module system, and put together some standard
3299 bindings. It also loads `init.scm', which is intended to hold
3300 site-specific initialization code.
3302 Since Guile cannot operate properly until boot-9.scm is loaded, there
3303 is no reason to separate loading boot-9.scm from Guile's other
3304 initialization processes.
3306 This job used to be done by scm_compile_shell_switches, which didn't
3307 make much sense; in particular, it meant that people using Guile for
3308 non-shell-like applications had to jump through hoops to get Guile
3309 initialized properly.
3311 ** The function scm_compile_shell_switches no longer loads the startup files.
3312 Now, Guile always loads the startup files, whenever it is initialized;
3313 see the notes above for scm_boot_guile and scm_load_startup_files.
3315 ** Function: scm_load_startup_files
3316 This new function takes care of loading Guile's initialization file
3317 (`boot-9.scm'), and the site initialization file, `init.scm'. Since
3318 this is always called by the Guile initialization process, it's
3319 probably not too useful to call this yourself, but it's there anyway.
3321 ** The semantics of smob marking have changed slightly.
3323 The smob marking function (the `mark' member of the scm_smobfuns
3324 structure) is no longer responsible for setting the mark bit on the
3325 smob. The generic smob handling code in the garbage collector will
3326 set this bit. The mark function need only ensure that any other
3327 objects the smob refers to get marked.
3329 Note that this change means that the smob's GC8MARK bit is typically
3330 already set upon entry to the mark function. Thus, marking functions
3331 which look like this:
3334 if (SCM_GC8MARKP (ptr))
3336 SCM_SETGC8MARK (ptr);
3337 ... mark objects to which the smob refers ...
3340 are now incorrect, since they will return early, and fail to mark any
3341 other objects the smob refers to. Some code in the Guile library used
3344 ** The semantics of the I/O port functions in scm_ptobfuns have changed.
3346 If you have implemented your own I/O port type, by writing the
3347 functions required by the scm_ptobfuns and then calling scm_newptob,
3348 you will need to change your functions slightly.
3350 The functions in a scm_ptobfuns structure now expect the port itself
3351 as their argument; they used to expect the `stream' member of the
3352 port's scm_port_table structure. This allows functions in an
3353 scm_ptobfuns structure to easily access the port's cell (and any flags
3354 it its CAR), and the port's scm_port_table structure.
3356 Guile now passes the I/O port itself as the `port' argument in the
3357 following scm_ptobfuns functions:
3359 int (*free) (SCM port);
3360 int (*fputc) (int, SCM port);
3361 int (*fputs) (char *, SCM port);
3362 scm_sizet (*fwrite) SCM_P ((char *ptr,
3366 int (*fflush) (SCM port);
3367 int (*fgetc) (SCM port);
3368 int (*fclose) (SCM port);
3370 The interfaces to the `mark', `print', `equalp', and `fgets' methods
3373 If you have existing code which defines its own port types, it is easy
3374 to convert your code to the new interface; simply apply SCM_STREAM to
3375 the port argument to yield the value you code used to expect.
3377 Note that since both the port and the stream have the same type in the
3378 C code --- they are both SCM values --- the C compiler will not remind
3379 you if you forget to update your scm_ptobfuns functions.
3382 ** Function: int scm_internal_select (int fds,
3386 struct timeval *timeout);
3388 This is a replacement for the `select' function provided by the OS.
3389 It enables I/O blocking and sleeping to happen for one cooperative
3390 thread without blocking other threads. It also avoids busy-loops in
3391 these situations. It is intended that all I/O blocking and sleeping
3392 will finally go through this function. Currently, this function is
3393 only available on systems providing `gettimeofday' and `select'.
3395 ** Function: SCM scm_internal_stack_catch (SCM tag,
3396 scm_catch_body_t body,
3398 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
3401 A new sibling to the other two C level `catch' functions
3402 scm_internal_catch and scm_internal_lazy_catch. Use it if you want
3403 the stack to be saved automatically into the variable `the-last-stack'
3404 (scm_the_last_stack_var) on error. This is necessary if you want to
3405 use advanced error reporting, such as calling scm_display_error and
3406 scm_display_backtrace. (They both take a stack object as argument.)
3408 ** Function: SCM scm_spawn_thread (scm_catch_body_t body,
3410 scm_catch_handler_t handler,
3413 Spawns a new thread. It does a job similar to
3414 scm_call_with_new_thread but takes arguments more suitable when
3415 spawning threads from application C code.
3417 ** The hook scm_error_callback has been removed. It was originally
3418 intended as a way for the user to install his own error handler. But
3419 that method works badly since it intervenes between throw and catch,
3420 thereby changing the semantics of expressions like (catch #t ...).
3421 The correct way to do it is to use one of the C level catch functions
3422 in throw.c: scm_internal_catch/lazy_catch/stack_catch.
3424 ** Removed functions:
3426 scm_obj_length, scm_list_length, scm_list_append, scm_list_append_x,
3427 scm_list_reverse, scm_list_reverse_x
3429 ** New macros: SCM_LISTn where n is one of the integers 0-9.
3431 These can be used for pretty list creation from C. The idea is taken
3432 from Erick Gallesio's STk.
3434 ** scm_array_map renamed to scm_array_map_x
3436 ** mbstrings are now removed
3438 This means that the type codes scm_tc7_mb_string and
3439 scm_tc7_mb_substring has been removed.
3441 ** scm_gen_putc, scm_gen_puts, scm_gen_write, and scm_gen_getc have changed.
3443 Since we no longer support multi-byte strings, these I/O functions
3444 have been simplified, and renamed. Here are their old names, and
3445 their new names and arguments:
3447 scm_gen_putc -> void scm_putc (int c, SCM port);
3448 scm_gen_puts -> void scm_puts (char *s, SCM port);
3449 scm_gen_write -> void scm_lfwrite (char *ptr, scm_sizet size, SCM port);
3450 scm_gen_getc -> void scm_getc (SCM port);
3453 ** The macros SCM_TYP7D and SCM_TYP7SD has been removed.
3455 ** The macro SCM_TYP7S has taken the role of the old SCM_TYP7D
3457 SCM_TYP7S now masks away the bit which distinguishes substrings from
3460 ** scm_catch_body_t: Backward incompatible change!
3462 Body functions to scm_internal_catch and friends do not any longer
3463 take a second argument. This is because it is no longer possible to
3464 pass a #f arg to catch.
3466 ** Calls to scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect now nest properly.
3468 The function scm_protect_object protects its argument from being freed
3469 by the garbage collector. scm_unprotect_object removes that
3472 These functions now nest properly. That is, for every object O, there
3473 is a counter which scm_protect_object(O) increments and
3474 scm_unprotect_object(O) decrements, if the counter is greater than
3475 zero. Every object's counter is zero when it is first created. If an
3476 object's counter is greater than zero, the garbage collector will not
3477 reclaim its storage.
3479 This allows you to use scm_protect_object in your code without
3480 worrying that some other function you call will call
3481 scm_unprotect_object, and allow it to be freed. Assuming that the
3482 functions you call are well-behaved, and unprotect only those objects
3483 they protect, you can follow the same rule and have confidence that
3484 objects will be freed only at appropriate times.
3487 Changes in Guile 1.2 (released Tuesday, June 24 1997):
3489 * Changes to the distribution
3491 ** Nightly snapshots are now available from ftp.red-bean.com.
3492 The old server, ftp.cyclic.com, has been relinquished to its rightful
3495 Nightly snapshots of the Guile development sources are now available via
3496 anonymous FTP from ftp.red-bean.com, as /pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz.
3498 Via the web, that's: ftp://ftp.red-bean.com/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
3499 For getit, that's: ftp.red-bean.com:/pub/guile/guile-snap.tar.gz
3501 ** To run Guile without installing it, the procedure has changed a bit.
3503 If you used a separate build directory to compile Guile, you'll need
3504 to include the build directory in SCHEME_LOAD_PATH, as well as the
3505 source directory. See the `INSTALL' file for examples.
3507 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
3509 ** The standard Guile load path for Scheme code now includes
3510 $(datadir)/guile (usually /usr/local/share/guile). This means that
3511 you can install your own Scheme files there, and Guile will find them.
3512 (Previous versions of Guile only checked a directory whose name
3513 contained the Guile version number, so you had to re-install or move
3514 your Scheme sources each time you installed a fresh version of Guile.)
3516 The load path also includes $(datadir)/guile/site; we recommend
3517 putting individual Scheme files there. If you want to install a
3518 package with multiple source files, create a directory for them under
3521 ** Guile 1.2 will now use the Rx regular expression library, if it is
3522 installed on your system. When you are linking libguile into your own
3523 programs, this means you will have to link against -lguile, -lqt (if
3524 you configured Guile with thread support), and -lrx.
3526 If you are using autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your
3527 application, the following lines should suffice to add the appropriate
3528 libraries to your link command:
3530 ### Find Rx, quickthreads and libguile.
3531 AC_CHECK_LIB(rx, main)
3532 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
3533 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
3535 The Guile 1.2 distribution does not contain sources for the Rx
3536 library, as Guile 1.0 did. If you want to use Rx, you'll need to
3537 retrieve it from a GNU FTP site and install it separately.
3539 * Changes to Scheme functions and syntax
3541 ** The dynamic linking features of Guile are now enabled by default.
3542 You can disable them by giving the `--disable-dynamic-linking' option
3545 (dynamic-link FILENAME)
3547 Find the object file denoted by FILENAME (a string) and link it
3548 into the running Guile application. When everything works out,
3549 return a Scheme object suitable for representing the linked object
3550 file. Otherwise an error is thrown. How object files are
3551 searched is system dependent.
3553 (dynamic-object? VAL)
3555 Determine whether VAL represents a dynamically linked object file.
3557 (dynamic-unlink DYNOBJ)
3559 Unlink the indicated object file from the application. DYNOBJ
3560 should be one of the values returned by `dynamic-link'.
3562 (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
3564 Search the C function indicated by FUNCTION (a string or symbol)
3565 in DYNOBJ and return some Scheme object that can later be used
3566 with `dynamic-call' to actually call this function. Right now,
3567 these Scheme objects are formed by casting the address of the
3568 function to `long' and converting this number to its Scheme
3571 (dynamic-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ)
3573 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ. The
3574 function is passed no arguments and its return value is ignored.
3575 When FUNCTION is something returned by `dynamic-func', call that
3576 function and ignore DYNOBJ. When FUNCTION is a string (or symbol,
3577 etc.), look it up in DYNOBJ; this is equivalent to
3579 (dynamic-call (dynamic-func FUNCTION DYNOBJ) #f)
3581 Interrupts are deferred while the C function is executing (with
3582 SCM_DEFER_INTS/SCM_ALLOW_INTS).
3584 (dynamic-args-call FUNCTION DYNOBJ ARGS)
3586 Call the C function indicated by FUNCTION and DYNOBJ, but pass it
3587 some arguments and return its return value. The C function is
3588 expected to take two arguments and return an `int', just like
3591 int c_func (int argc, char **argv);
3593 ARGS must be a list of strings and is converted into an array of
3594 `char *'. The array is passed in ARGV and its size in ARGC. The
3595 return value is converted to a Scheme number and returned from the
3596 call to `dynamic-args-call'.
3598 When dynamic linking is disabled or not supported on your system,
3599 the above functions throw errors, but they are still available.
3601 Here is a small example that works on GNU/Linux:
3603 (define libc-obj (dynamic-link "libc.so"))
3604 (dynamic-args-call 'rand libc-obj '())
3606 See the file `libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING' for additional comments.
3608 ** The #/ syntax for module names is depreciated, and will be removed
3609 in a future version of Guile. Instead of
3617 The latter syntax is more consistent with existing Lisp practice.
3619 ** Guile now does fancier printing of structures. Structures are the
3620 underlying implementation for records, which in turn are used to
3621 implement modules, so all of these object now print differently and in
3622 a more informative way.
3624 The Scheme printer will examine the builtin variable *struct-printer*
3625 whenever it needs to print a structure object. When this variable is
3626 not `#f' it is deemed to be a procedure and will be applied to the
3627 structure object and the output port. When *struct-printer* is `#f'
3628 or the procedure return `#f' the structure object will be printed in
3629 the boring #<struct 80458270> form.
3631 This hook is used by some routines in ice-9/boot-9.scm to implement
3632 type specific printing routines. Please read the comments there about
3635 One of the more specific uses of structs are records. The printing
3636 procedure that could be passed to MAKE-RECORD-TYPE is now actually
3637 called. It should behave like a *struct-printer* procedure (described
3640 ** Guile now supports a new R4RS-compliant syntax for keywords. A
3641 token of the form #:NAME, where NAME has the same syntax as a Scheme
3642 symbol, is the external representation of the keyword named NAME.
3643 Keyword objects print using this syntax as well, so values containing
3644 keyword objects can be read back into Guile. When used in an
3645 expression, keywords are self-quoting objects.
3647 Guile suports this read syntax, and uses this print syntax, regardless
3648 of the current setting of the `keyword' read option. The `keyword'
3649 read option only controls whether Guile recognizes the `:NAME' syntax,
3650 which is incompatible with R4RS. (R4RS says such token represent
3653 ** Guile has regular expression support again. Guile 1.0 included
3654 functions for matching regular expressions, based on the Rx library.
3655 In Guile 1.1, the Guile/Rx interface was removed to simplify the
3656 distribution, and thus Guile had no regular expression support. Guile
3657 1.2 again supports the most commonly used functions, and supports all
3658 of SCSH's regular expression functions.
3660 If your system does not include a POSIX regular expression library,
3661 and you have not linked Guile with a third-party regexp library such as
3662 Rx, these functions will not be available. You can tell whether your
3663 Guile installation includes regular expression support by checking
3664 whether the `*features*' list includes the `regex' symbol.
3666 *** regexp functions
3668 By default, Guile supports POSIX extended regular expressions. That
3669 means that the characters `(', `)', `+' and `?' are special, and must
3670 be escaped if you wish to match the literal characters.
3672 This regular expression interface was modeled after that implemented
3673 by SCSH, the Scheme Shell. It is intended to be upwardly compatible
3674 with SCSH regular expressions.
3676 **** Function: string-match PATTERN STR [START]
3677 Compile the string PATTERN into a regular expression and compare
3678 it with STR. The optional numeric argument START specifies the
3679 position of STR at which to begin matching.
3681 `string-match' returns a "match structure" which describes what,
3682 if anything, was matched by the regular expression. *Note Match
3683 Structures::. If STR does not match PATTERN at all,
3684 `string-match' returns `#f'.
3686 Each time `string-match' is called, it must compile its PATTERN
3687 argument into a regular expression structure. This operation is
3688 expensive, which makes `string-match' inefficient if the same regular
3689 expression is used several times (for example, in a loop). For better
3690 performance, you can compile a regular expression in advance and then
3691 match strings against the compiled regexp.
3693 **** Function: make-regexp STR [FLAGS]
3694 Compile the regular expression described by STR, and return the
3695 compiled regexp structure. If STR does not describe a legal
3696 regular expression, `make-regexp' throws a
3697 `regular-expression-syntax' error.
3699 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
3701 **** Constant: regexp/extended
3702 Use POSIX Extended Regular Expression syntax when interpreting
3703 STR. If not set, POSIX Basic Regular Expression syntax is used.
3704 If the FLAGS argument is omitted, we assume regexp/extended.
3706 **** Constant: regexp/icase
3707 Do not differentiate case. Subsequent searches using the
3708 returned regular expression will be case insensitive.
3710 **** Constant: regexp/newline
3711 Match-any-character operators don't match a newline.
3713 A non-matching list ([^...]) not containing a newline matches a
3716 Match-beginning-of-line operator (^) matches the empty string
3717 immediately after a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
3718 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/notbol.
3720 Match-end-of-line operator ($) matches the empty string
3721 immediately before a newline, regardless of whether the FLAGS
3722 passed to regexp-exec contain regexp/noteol.
3724 **** Function: regexp-exec REGEXP STR [START [FLAGS]]
3725 Match the compiled regular expression REGEXP against `str'. If
3726 the optional integer START argument is provided, begin matching
3727 from that position in the string. Return a match structure
3728 describing the results of the match, or `#f' if no match could be
3731 FLAGS may be the bitwise-or of one or more of the following:
3733 **** Constant: regexp/notbol
3734 The match-beginning-of-line operator always fails to match (but
3735 see the compilation flag regexp/newline above) This flag may be
3736 used when different portions of a string are passed to
3737 regexp-exec and the beginning of the string should not be
3738 interpreted as the beginning of the line.
3740 **** Constant: regexp/noteol
3741 The match-end-of-line operator always fails to match (but see the
3742 compilation flag regexp/newline above)
3744 **** Function: regexp? OBJ
3745 Return `#t' if OBJ is a compiled regular expression, or `#f'
3748 Regular expressions are commonly used to find patterns in one string
3749 and replace them with the contents of another string.
3751 **** Function: regexp-substitute PORT MATCH [ITEM...]
3752 Write to the output port PORT selected contents of the match
3753 structure MATCH. Each ITEM specifies what should be written, and
3754 may be one of the following arguments:
3756 * A string. String arguments are written out verbatim.
3758 * An integer. The submatch with that number is written.
3760 * The symbol `pre'. The portion of the matched string preceding
3761 the regexp match is written.
3763 * The symbol `post'. The portion of the matched string
3764 following the regexp match is written.
3766 PORT may be `#f', in which case nothing is written; instead,
3767 `regexp-substitute' constructs a string from the specified ITEMs
3770 **** Function: regexp-substitute/global PORT REGEXP TARGET [ITEM...]
3771 Similar to `regexp-substitute', but can be used to perform global
3772 substitutions on STR. Instead of taking a match structure as an
3773 argument, `regexp-substitute/global' takes two string arguments: a
3774 REGEXP string describing a regular expression, and a TARGET string
3775 which should be matched against this regular expression.
3777 Each ITEM behaves as in REGEXP-SUBSTITUTE, with the following
3780 * A function may be supplied. When this function is called, it
3781 will be passed one argument: a match structure for a given
3782 regular expression match. It should return a string to be
3783 written out to PORT.
3785 * The `post' symbol causes `regexp-substitute/global' to recurse
3786 on the unmatched portion of STR. This *must* be supplied in
3787 order to perform global search-and-replace on STR; if it is
3788 not present among the ITEMs, then `regexp-substitute/global'
3789 will return after processing a single match.
3791 *** Match Structures
3793 A "match structure" is the object returned by `string-match' and
3794 `regexp-exec'. It describes which portion of a string, if any, matched
3795 the given regular expression. Match structures include: a reference to
3796 the string that was checked for matches; the starting and ending
3797 positions of the regexp match; and, if the regexp included any
3798 parenthesized subexpressions, the starting and ending positions of each
3801 In each of the regexp match functions described below, the `match'
3802 argument must be a match structure returned by a previous call to
3803 `string-match' or `regexp-exec'. Most of these functions return some
3804 information about the original target string that was matched against a
3805 regular expression; we will call that string TARGET for easy reference.
3807 **** Function: regexp-match? OBJ
3808 Return `#t' if OBJ is a match structure returned by a previous
3809 call to `regexp-exec', or `#f' otherwise.
3811 **** Function: match:substring MATCH [N]
3812 Return the portion of TARGET matched by subexpression number N.
3813 Submatch 0 (the default) represents the entire regexp match. If
3814 the regular expression as a whole matched, but the subexpression
3815 number N did not match, return `#f'.
3817 **** Function: match:start MATCH [N]
3818 Return the starting position of submatch number N.
3820 **** Function: match:end MATCH [N]
3821 Return the ending position of submatch number N.
3823 **** Function: match:prefix MATCH
3824 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET preceding the regexp match.
3826 **** Function: match:suffix MATCH
3827 Return the unmatched portion of TARGET following the regexp match.
3829 **** Function: match:count MATCH
3830 Return the number of parenthesized subexpressions from MATCH.
3831 Note that the entire regular expression match itself counts as a
3832 subexpression, and failed submatches are included in the count.
3834 **** Function: match:string MATCH
3835 Return the original TARGET string.
3837 *** Backslash Escapes
3839 Sometimes you will want a regexp to match characters like `*' or `$'
3840 exactly. For example, to check whether a particular string represents
3841 a menu entry from an Info node, it would be useful to match it against
3842 a regexp like `^* [^:]*::'. However, this won't work; because the
3843 asterisk is a metacharacter, it won't match the `*' at the beginning of
3844 the string. In this case, we want to make the first asterisk un-magic.
3846 You can do this by preceding the metacharacter with a backslash
3847 character `\'. (This is also called "quoting" the metacharacter, and
3848 is known as a "backslash escape".) When Guile sees a backslash in a
3849 regular expression, it considers the following glyph to be an ordinary
3850 character, no matter what special meaning it would ordinarily have.
3851 Therefore, we can make the above example work by changing the regexp to
3852 `^\* [^:]*::'. The `\*' sequence tells the regular expression engine
3853 to match only a single asterisk in the target string.
3855 Since the backslash is itself a metacharacter, you may force a
3856 regexp to match a backslash in the target string by preceding the
3857 backslash with itself. For example, to find variable references in a
3858 TeX program, you might want to find occurrences of the string `\let\'
3859 followed by any number of alphabetic characters. The regular expression
3860 `\\let\\[A-Za-z]*' would do this: the double backslashes in the regexp
3861 each match a single backslash in the target string.
3863 **** Function: regexp-quote STR
3864 Quote each special character found in STR with a backslash, and
3865 return the resulting string.
3867 *Very important:* Using backslash escapes in Guile source code (as
3868 in Emacs Lisp or C) can be tricky, because the backslash character has
3869 special meaning for the Guile reader. For example, if Guile encounters
3870 the character sequence `\n' in the middle of a string while processing
3871 Scheme code, it replaces those characters with a newline character.
3872 Similarly, the character sequence `\t' is replaced by a horizontal tab.
3873 Several of these "escape sequences" are processed by the Guile reader
3874 before your code is executed. Unrecognized escape sequences are
3875 ignored: if the characters `\*' appear in a string, they will be
3876 translated to the single character `*'.
3878 This translation is obviously undesirable for regular expressions,
3879 since we want to be able to include backslashes in a string in order to
3880 escape regexp metacharacters. Therefore, to make sure that a backslash
3881 is preserved in a string in your Guile program, you must use *two*
3882 consecutive backslashes:
3884 (define Info-menu-entry-pattern (make-regexp "^\\* [^:]*"))
3886 The string in this example is preprocessed by the Guile reader before
3887 any code is executed. The resulting argument to `make-regexp' is the
3888 string `^\* [^:]*', which is what we really want.
3890 This also means that in order to write a regular expression that
3891 matches a single backslash character, the regular expression string in
3892 the source code must include *four* backslashes. Each consecutive pair
3893 of backslashes gets translated by the Guile reader to a single
3894 backslash, and the resulting double-backslash is interpreted by the
3895 regexp engine as matching a single backslash character. Hence:
3897 (define tex-variable-pattern (make-regexp "\\\\let\\\\=[A-Za-z]*"))
3899 The reason for the unwieldiness of this syntax is historical. Both
3900 regular expression pattern matchers and Unix string processing systems
3901 have traditionally used backslashes with the special meanings described
3902 above. The POSIX regular expression specification and ANSI C standard
3903 both require these semantics. Attempting to abandon either convention
3904 would cause other kinds of compatibility problems, possibly more severe
3905 ones. Therefore, without extending the Scheme reader to support
3906 strings with different quoting conventions (an ungainly and confusing
3907 extension when implemented in other languages), we must adhere to this
3908 cumbersome escape syntax.
3910 * Changes to the gh_ interface
3912 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3914 * Changes to system call interfaces:
3916 ** The value returned by `raise' is now unspecified. It throws an exception
3919 *** A new procedure `sigaction' can be used to install signal handlers
3921 (sigaction signum [action] [flags])
3923 signum is the signal number, which can be specified using the value
3926 If action is omitted, sigaction returns a pair: the CAR is the current
3927 signal hander, which will be either an integer with the value SIG_DFL
3928 (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or the Scheme procedure which
3929 handles the signal, or #f if a non-Scheme procedure handles the
3930 signal. The CDR contains the current sigaction flags for the handler.
3932 If action is provided, it is installed as the new handler for signum.
3933 action can be a Scheme procedure taking one argument, or the value of
3934 SIG_DFL (default action) or SIG_IGN (ignore), or #f to restore
3935 whatever signal handler was installed before sigaction was first used.
3936 Flags can optionally be specified for the new handler (SA_RESTART is
3937 always used if the system provides it, so need not be specified.) The
3938 return value is a pair with information about the old handler as
3941 This interface does not provide access to the "signal blocking"
3942 facility. Maybe this is not needed, since the thread support may
3943 provide solutions to the problem of consistent access to data
3946 *** A new procedure `flush-all-ports' is equivalent to running
3947 `force-output' on every port open for output.
3949 ** Guile now provides information on how it was built, via the new
3950 global variable, %guile-build-info. This variable records the values
3951 of the standard GNU makefile directory variables as an assocation
3952 list, mapping variable names (symbols) onto directory paths (strings).
3953 For example, to find out where the Guile link libraries were
3954 installed, you can say:
3956 guile -c "(display (assq-ref %guile-build-info 'libdir)) (newline)"
3959 * Changes to the scm_ interface
3961 ** The new function scm_handle_by_message_noexit is just like the
3962 existing scm_handle_by_message function, except that it doesn't call
3963 exit to terminate the process. Instead, it prints a message and just
3964 returns #f. This might be a more appropriate catch-all handler for
3965 new dynamic roots and threads.
3968 Changes in Guile 1.1 (released Friday, May 16 1997):
3970 * Changes to the distribution.
3972 The Guile 1.0 distribution has been split up into several smaller
3974 guile-core --- the Guile interpreter itself.
3975 guile-tcltk --- the interface between the Guile interpreter and
3976 Tcl/Tk; Tcl is an interpreter for a stringy language, and Tk
3977 is a toolkit for building graphical user interfaces.
3978 guile-rgx-ctax --- the interface between Guile and the Rx regular
3979 expression matcher, and the translator for the Ctax
3980 programming language. These are packaged together because the
3981 Ctax translator uses Rx to parse Ctax source code.
3983 This NEWS file describes the changes made to guile-core since the 1.0
3986 We no longer distribute the documentation, since it was either out of
3987 date, or incomplete. As soon as we have current documentation, we
3992 * Changes to the stand-alone interpreter
3994 ** guile now accepts command-line arguments compatible with SCSH, Olin
3995 Shivers' Scheme Shell.
3997 In general, arguments are evaluated from left to right, but there are
3998 exceptions. The following switches stop argument processing, and
3999 stash all remaining command-line arguments as the value returned by
4000 the (command-line) function.
4001 -s SCRIPT load Scheme source code from FILE, and exit
4002 -c EXPR evalute Scheme expression EXPR, and exit
4003 -- stop scanning arguments; run interactively
4005 The switches below are processed as they are encountered.
4006 -l FILE load Scheme source code from FILE
4007 -e FUNCTION after reading script, apply FUNCTION to
4008 command line arguments
4009 -ds do -s script at this point
4010 --emacs enable Emacs protocol (experimental)
4011 -h, --help display this help and exit
4012 -v, --version display version information and exit
4013 \ read arguments from following script lines
4015 So, for example, here is a Guile script named `ekko' (thanks, Olin)
4016 which re-implements the traditional "echo" command:
4018 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
4021 (map (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
4025 (main (command-line))
4027 Suppose we invoke this script as follows:
4029 ekko a speckled gecko
4031 Through the magic of Unix script processing (triggered by the `#!'
4032 token at the top of the file), /usr/local/bin/guile receives the
4033 following list of command-line arguments:
4035 ("-s" "./ekko" "a" "speckled" "gecko")
4037 Unix inserts the name of the script after the argument specified on
4038 the first line of the file (in this case, "-s"), and then follows that
4039 with the arguments given to the script. Guile loads the script, which
4040 defines the `main' function, and then applies it to the list of
4041 remaining command-line arguments, ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
4043 In Unix, the first line of a script file must take the following form:
4045 #!INTERPRETER ARGUMENT
4047 where INTERPRETER is the absolute filename of the interpreter
4048 executable, and ARGUMENT is a single command-line argument to pass to
4051 You may only pass one argument to the interpreter, and its length is
4052 limited. These restrictions can be annoying to work around, so Guile
4053 provides a general mechanism (borrowed from, and compatible with,
4054 SCSH) for circumventing them.
4056 If the ARGUMENT in a Guile script is a single backslash character,
4057 `\', Guile will open the script file, parse arguments from its second
4058 and subsequent lines, and replace the `\' with them. So, for example,
4059 here is another implementation of the `ekko' script:
4061 #!/usr/local/bin/guile \
4065 (for-each (lambda (arg) (display arg) (display " "))
4069 If the user invokes this script as follows:
4071 ekko a speckled gecko
4073 Unix expands this into
4075 /usr/local/bin/guile \ ekko a speckled gecko
4077 When Guile sees the `\' argument, it replaces it with the arguments
4078 read from the second line of the script, producing:
4080 /usr/local/bin/guile -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
4082 This tells Guile to load the `ekko' script, and apply the function
4083 `main' to the argument list ("a" "speckled" "gecko").
4085 Here is how Guile parses the command-line arguments:
4086 - Each space character terminates an argument. This means that two
4087 spaces in a row introduce an empty-string argument.
4088 - The tab character is not permitted (unless you quote it with the
4089 backslash character, as described below), to avoid confusion.
4090 - The newline character terminates the sequence of arguments, and will
4091 also terminate a final non-empty argument. (However, a newline
4092 following a space will not introduce a final empty-string argument;
4093 it only terminates the argument list.)
4094 - The backslash character is the escape character. It escapes
4095 backslash, space, tab, and newline. The ANSI C escape sequences
4096 like \n and \t are also supported. These produce argument
4097 constituents; the two-character combination \n doesn't act like a
4098 terminating newline. The escape sequence \NNN for exactly three
4099 octal digits reads as the character whose ASCII code is NNN. As
4100 above, characters produced this way are argument constituents.
4101 Backslash followed by other characters is not allowed.
4103 * Changes to the procedure for linking libguile with your programs
4105 ** Guile now builds and installs a shared guile library, if your
4106 system support shared libraries. (It still builds a static library on
4107 all systems.) Guile automatically detects whether your system
4108 supports shared libraries. To prevent Guile from buildisg shared
4109 libraries, pass the `--disable-shared' flag to the configure script.
4111 Guile takes longer to compile when it builds shared libraries, because
4112 it must compile every file twice --- once to produce position-
4113 independent object code, and once to produce normal object code.
4115 ** The libthreads library has been merged into libguile.
4117 To link a program against Guile, you now need only link against
4118 -lguile and -lqt; -lthreads is no longer needed. If you are using
4119 autoconf to generate configuration scripts for your application, the
4120 following lines should suffice to add the appropriate libraries to
4123 ### Find quickthreads and libguile.
4124 AC_CHECK_LIB(qt, main)
4125 AC_CHECK_LIB(guile, scm_shell)
4127 * Changes to Scheme functions
4129 ** Guile Scheme's special syntax for keyword objects is now optional,
4130 and disabled by default.
4132 The syntax variation from R4RS made it difficult to port some
4133 interesting packages to Guile. The routines which accepted keyword
4134 arguments (mostly in the module system) have been modified to also
4135 accept symbols whose names begin with `:'.
4137 To change the keyword syntax, you must first import the (ice-9 debug)
4139 (use-modules (ice-9 debug))
4141 Then you can enable the keyword syntax as follows:
4142 (read-set! keywords 'prefix)
4144 To disable keyword syntax, do this:
4145 (read-set! keywords #f)
4147 ** Many more primitive functions accept shared substrings as
4148 arguments. In the past, these functions required normal, mutable
4149 strings as arguments, although they never made use of this
4152 ** The uniform array functions now operate on byte vectors. These
4153 functions are `array-fill!', `serial-array-copy!', `array-copy!',
4154 `serial-array-map', `array-map', `array-for-each', and
4157 ** The new functions `trace' and `untrace' implement simple debugging
4158 support for Scheme functions.
4160 The `trace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
4161 and tells the Guile interpreter to display each procedure's name and
4162 arguments each time the procedure is invoked. When invoked with no
4163 arguments, `trace' returns the list of procedures currently being
4166 The `untrace' function accepts any number of procedures as arguments,
4167 and tells the Guile interpreter not to trace them any more. When
4168 invoked with no arguments, `untrace' untraces all curretly traced
4171 The tracing in Guile has an advantage over most other systems: we
4172 don't create new procedure objects, but mark the procedure objects
4173 themselves. This means that anonymous and internal procedures can be
4176 ** The function `assert-repl-prompt' has been renamed to
4177 `set-repl-prompt!'. It takes one argument, PROMPT.
4178 - If PROMPT is #f, the Guile read-eval-print loop will not prompt.
4179 - If PROMPT is a string, we use it as a prompt.
4180 - If PROMPT is a procedure accepting no arguments, we call it, and
4181 display the result as a prompt.
4182 - Otherwise, we display "> ".
4184 ** The new function `eval-string' reads Scheme expressions from a
4185 string and evaluates them, returning the value of the last expression
4186 in the string. If the string contains no expressions, it returns an
4189 ** The new function `thunk?' returns true iff its argument is a
4190 procedure of zero arguments.
4192 ** `defined?' is now a builtin function, instead of syntax. This
4193 means that its argument should be quoted. It returns #t iff its
4194 argument is bound in the current module.
4196 ** The new syntax `use-modules' allows you to add new modules to your
4197 environment without re-typing a complete `define-module' form. It
4198 accepts any number of module names as arguments, and imports their
4199 public bindings into the current module.
4201 ** The new function (module-defined? NAME MODULE) returns true iff
4202 NAME, a symbol, is defined in MODULE, a module object.
4204 ** The new function `builtin-bindings' creates and returns a hash
4205 table containing copies of all the root module's bindings.
4207 ** The new function `builtin-weak-bindings' does the same as
4208 `builtin-bindings', but creates a doubly-weak hash table.
4210 ** The `equal?' function now considers variable objects to be
4211 equivalent if they have the same name and the same value.
4213 ** The new function `command-line' returns the command-line arguments
4214 given to Guile, as a list of strings.
4216 When using guile as a script interpreter, `command-line' returns the
4217 script's arguments; those processed by the interpreter (like `-s' or
4218 `-c') are omitted. (In other words, you get the normal, expected
4219 behavior.) Any application that uses scm_shell to process its
4220 command-line arguments gets this behavior as well.
4222 ** The new function `load-user-init' looks for a file called `.guile'
4223 in the user's home directory, and loads it if it exists. This is
4224 mostly for use by the code generated by scm_compile_shell_switches,
4225 but we thought it might also be useful in other circumstances.
4227 ** The new function `log10' returns the base-10 logarithm of its
4230 ** Changes to I/O functions
4232 *** The functions `read', `primitive-load', `read-and-eval!', and
4233 `primitive-load-path' no longer take optional arguments controlling
4234 case insensitivity and a `#' parser.
4236 Case sensitivity is now controlled by a read option called
4237 `case-insensitive'. The user can add new `#' syntaxes with the
4238 `read-hash-extend' function (see below).
4240 *** The new function `read-hash-extend' allows the user to change the
4241 syntax of Guile Scheme in a somewhat controlled way.
4243 (read-hash-extend CHAR PROC)
4244 When parsing S-expressions, if we read a `#' character followed by
4245 the character CHAR, use PROC to parse an object from the stream.
4246 If PROC is #f, remove any parsing procedure registered for CHAR.
4248 The reader applies PROC to two arguments: CHAR and an input port.
4250 *** The new functions read-delimited and read-delimited! provide a
4251 general mechanism for doing delimited input on streams.
4253 (read-delimited DELIMS [PORT HANDLE-DELIM])
4254 Read until we encounter one of the characters in DELIMS (a string),
4255 or end-of-file. PORT is the input port to read from; it defaults to
4256 the current input port. The HANDLE-DELIM parameter determines how
4257 the terminating character is handled; it should be one of the
4260 'trim omit delimiter from result
4261 'peek leave delimiter character in input stream
4262 'concat append delimiter character to returned value
4263 'split return a pair: (RESULT . TERMINATOR)
4265 HANDLE-DELIM defaults to 'peek.
4267 (read-delimited! DELIMS BUF [PORT HANDLE-DELIM START END])
4268 A side-effecting variant of `read-delimited'.
4270 The data is written into the string BUF at the indices in the
4271 half-open interval [START, END); the default interval is the whole
4272 string: START = 0 and END = (string-length BUF). The values of
4273 START and END must specify a well-defined interval in BUF, i.e.
4274 0 <= START <= END <= (string-length BUF).
4276 It returns NBYTES, the number of bytes read. If the buffer filled
4277 up without a delimiter character being found, it returns #f. If the
4278 port is at EOF when the read starts, it returns the EOF object.
4280 If an integer is returned (i.e., the read is successfully terminated
4281 by reading a delimiter character), then the HANDLE-DELIM parameter
4282 determines how to handle the terminating character. It is described
4283 above, and defaults to 'peek.
4285 (The descriptions of these functions were borrowed from the SCSH
4286 manual, by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
4288 *** The `%read-delimited!' function is the primitive used to implement
4289 `read-delimited' and `read-delimited!'.
4291 (%read-delimited! DELIMS BUF GOBBLE? [PORT START END])
4293 This returns a pair of values: (TERMINATOR . NUM-READ).
4294 - TERMINATOR describes why the read was terminated. If it is a
4295 character or the eof object, then that is the value that terminated
4296 the read. If it is #f, the function filled the buffer without finding
4297 a delimiting character.
4298 - NUM-READ is the number of characters read into BUF.
4300 If the read is successfully terminated by reading a delimiter
4301 character, then the gobble? parameter determines what to do with the
4302 terminating character. If true, the character is removed from the
4303 input stream; if false, the character is left in the input stream
4304 where a subsequent read operation will retrieve it. In either case,
4305 the character is also the first value returned by the procedure call.
4307 (The descriptions of this function was borrowed from the SCSH manual,
4308 by Olin Shivers and Brian Carlstrom.)
4310 *** The `read-line' and `read-line!' functions have changed; they now
4311 trim the terminator by default; previously they appended it to the
4312 returned string. For the old behavior, use (read-line PORT 'concat).
4314 *** The functions `uniform-array-read!' and `uniform-array-write!' now
4315 take new optional START and END arguments, specifying the region of
4316 the array to read and write.
4318 *** The `ungetc-char-ready?' function has been removed. We feel it's
4319 inappropriate for an interface to expose implementation details this
4322 ** Changes to the Unix library and system call interface
4324 *** The new fcntl function provides access to the Unix `fcntl' system
4327 (fcntl PORT COMMAND VALUE)
4328 Apply COMMAND to PORT's file descriptor, with VALUE as an argument.
4329 Values for COMMAND are:
4331 F_DUPFD duplicate a file descriptor
4332 F_GETFD read the descriptor's close-on-exec flag
4333 F_SETFD set the descriptor's close-on-exec flag to VALUE
4334 F_GETFL read the descriptor's flags, as set on open
4335 F_SETFL set the descriptor's flags, as set on open to VALUE
4336 F_GETOWN return the process ID of a socket's owner, for SIGIO
4337 F_SETOWN set the process that owns a socket to VALUE, for SIGIO
4338 FD_CLOEXEC not sure what this is
4340 For details, see the documentation for the fcntl system call.
4342 *** The arguments to `select' have changed, for compatibility with
4343 SCSH. The TIMEOUT parameter may now be non-integral, yielding the
4344 expected behavior. The MILLISECONDS parameter has been changed to
4345 MICROSECONDS, to more closely resemble the underlying system call.
4346 The RVEC, WVEC, and EVEC arguments can now be vectors; the type of the
4347 corresponding return set will be the same.
4349 *** The arguments to the `mknod' system call have changed. They are
4352 (mknod PATH TYPE PERMS DEV)
4353 Create a new file (`node') in the file system. PATH is the name of
4354 the file to create. TYPE is the kind of file to create; it should
4355 be 'fifo, 'block-special, or 'char-special. PERMS specifies the
4356 permission bits to give the newly created file. If TYPE is
4357 'block-special or 'char-special, DEV specifies which device the
4358 special file refers to; its interpretation depends on the kind of
4359 special file being created.
4361 *** The `fork' function has been renamed to `primitive-fork', to avoid
4362 clashing with various SCSH forks.
4364 *** The `recv' and `recvfrom' functions have been renamed to `recv!'
4365 and `recvfrom!'. They no longer accept a size for a second argument;
4366 you must pass a string to hold the received value. They no longer
4367 return the buffer. Instead, `recv' returns the length of the message
4368 received, and `recvfrom' returns a pair containing the packet's length
4369 and originating address.
4371 *** The file descriptor datatype has been removed, as have the
4372 `read-fd', `write-fd', `close', `lseek', and `dup' functions.
4373 We plan to replace these functions with a SCSH-compatible interface.
4375 *** The `create' function has been removed; it's just a special case
4378 *** There are new functions to break down process termination status
4379 values. In the descriptions below, STATUS is a value returned by
4382 (status:exit-val STATUS)
4383 If the child process exited normally, this function returns the exit
4384 code for the child process (i.e., the value passed to exit, or
4385 returned from main). If the child process did not exit normally,
4386 this function returns #f.
4388 (status:stop-sig STATUS)
4389 If the child process was suspended by a signal, this function
4390 returns the signal that suspended the child. Otherwise, it returns
4393 (status:term-sig STATUS)
4394 If the child process terminated abnormally, this function returns
4395 the signal that terminated the child. Otherwise, this function
4398 POSIX promises that exactly one of these functions will return true on
4399 a valid STATUS value.
4401 These functions are compatible with SCSH.
4403 *** There are new accessors and setters for the broken-out time vectors
4404 returned by `localtime', `gmtime', and that ilk. They are:
4406 Component Accessor Setter
4407 ========================= ============ ============
4408 seconds tm:sec set-tm:sec
4409 minutes tm:min set-tm:min
4410 hours tm:hour set-tm:hour
4411 day of the month tm:mday set-tm:mday
4412 month tm:mon set-tm:mon
4413 year tm:year set-tm:year
4414 day of the week tm:wday set-tm:wday
4415 day in the year tm:yday set-tm:yday
4416 daylight saving time tm:isdst set-tm:isdst
4417 GMT offset, seconds tm:gmtoff set-tm:gmtoff
4418 name of time zone tm:zone set-tm:zone
4420 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `uname',
4421 describing the host system:
4424 ============================================== ================
4425 name of the operating system implementation utsname:sysname
4426 network name of this machine utsname:nodename
4427 release level of the operating system utsname:release
4428 version level of the operating system utsname:version
4429 machine hardware platform utsname:machine
4431 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getpw',
4432 `getpwnam', `getpwuid', and `getpwent', describing entries from the
4433 system's user database:
4436 ====================== =================
4437 user name passwd:name
4438 user password passwd:passwd
4441 real name passwd:gecos
4442 home directory passwd:dir
4443 shell program passwd:shell
4445 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getgr',
4446 `getgrnam', `getgrgid', and `getgrent', describing entries from the
4447 system's group database:
4450 ======================= ============
4451 group name group:name
4452 group password group:passwd
4454 group members group:mem
4456 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `gethost',
4457 `gethostbyaddr', `gethostbyname', and `gethostent', describing
4461 ========================= ===============
4462 official name of host hostent:name
4463 alias list hostent:aliases
4464 host address type hostent:addrtype
4465 length of address hostent:length
4466 list of addresses hostent:addr-list
4468 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getnet',
4469 `getnetbyaddr', `getnetbyname', and `getnetent', describing internet
4473 ========================= ===============
4474 official name of net netent:name
4475 alias list netent:aliases
4476 net number type netent:addrtype
4477 net number netent:net
4479 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getproto',
4480 `getprotobyname', `getprotobynumber', and `getprotoent', describing
4484 ========================= ===============
4485 official protocol name protoent:name
4486 alias list protoent:aliases
4487 protocol number protoent:proto
4489 *** There are new accessors for the vectors returned by `getserv',
4490 `getservbyname', `getservbyport', and `getservent', describing
4494 ========================= ===============
4495 official service name servent:name
4496 alias list servent:aliases
4497 port number servent:port
4498 protocol to use servent:proto
4500 *** There are new accessors for the sockaddr structures returned by
4501 `accept', `getsockname', `getpeername', `recvfrom!':
4504 ======================================== ===============
4505 address format (`family') sockaddr:fam
4506 path, for file domain addresses sockaddr:path
4507 address, for internet domain addresses sockaddr:addr
4508 TCP or UDP port, for internet sockaddr:port
4510 *** The `getpwent', `getgrent', `gethostent', `getnetent',
4511 `getprotoent', and `getservent' functions now return #f at the end of
4512 the user database. (They used to throw an exception.)
4514 Note that calling MUMBLEent function is equivalent to calling the
4515 corresponding MUMBLE function with no arguments.
4517 *** The `setpwent', `setgrent', `sethostent', `setnetent',
4518 `setprotoent', and `setservent' routines now take no arguments.
4520 *** The `gethost', `getproto', `getnet', and `getserv' functions now
4521 provide more useful information when they throw an exception.
4523 *** The `lnaof' function has been renamed to `inet-lnaof'.
4525 *** Guile now claims to have the `current-time' feature.
4527 *** The `mktime' function now takes an optional second argument ZONE,
4528 giving the time zone to use for the conversion. ZONE should be a
4529 string, in the same format as expected for the "TZ" environment variable.
4531 *** The `strptime' function now returns a pair (TIME . COUNT), where
4532 TIME is the parsed time as a vector, and COUNT is the number of
4533 characters from the string left unparsed. This function used to
4534 return the remaining characters as a string.
4536 *** The `gettimeofday' function has replaced the old `time+ticks' function.
4537 The return value is now (SECONDS . MICROSECONDS); the fractional
4538 component is no longer expressed in "ticks".
4540 *** The `ticks/sec' constant has been removed, in light of the above change.
4542 * Changes to the gh_ interface
4544 ** gh_eval_str() now returns an SCM object which is the result of the
4547 ** gh_scm2str() now copies the Scheme data to a caller-provided C
4550 ** gh_scm2newstr() now makes a C array, copies the Scheme data to it,
4551 and returns the array
4553 ** gh_scm2str0() is gone: there is no need to distinguish
4554 null-terminated from non-null-terminated, since gh_scm2newstr() allows
4555 the user to interpret the data both ways.
4557 * Changes to the scm_ interface
4559 ** The new function scm_symbol_value0 provides an easy way to get a
4560 symbol's value from C code:
4562 SCM scm_symbol_value0 (char *NAME)
4563 Return the value of the symbol named by the null-terminated string
4564 NAME in the current module. If the symbol named NAME is unbound in
4565 the current module, return SCM_UNDEFINED.
4567 ** The new function scm_sysintern0 creates new top-level variables,
4568 without assigning them a value.
4570 SCM scm_sysintern0 (char *NAME)
4571 Create a new Scheme top-level variable named NAME. NAME is a
4572 null-terminated string. Return the variable's value cell.
4574 ** The function scm_internal_catch is the guts of catch. It handles
4575 all the mechanics of setting up a catch target, invoking the catch
4576 body, and perhaps invoking the handler if the body does a throw.
4578 The function is designed to be usable from C code, but is general
4579 enough to implement all the semantics Guile Scheme expects from throw.
4581 TAG is the catch tag. Typically, this is a symbol, but this function
4582 doesn't actually care about that.
4584 BODY is a pointer to a C function which runs the body of the catch;
4585 this is the code you can throw from. We call it like this:
4586 BODY (BODY_DATA, JMPBUF)
4588 BODY_DATA is just the BODY_DATA argument we received; we pass it
4589 through to BODY as its first argument. The caller can make
4590 BODY_DATA point to anything useful that BODY might need.
4591 JMPBUF is the Scheme jmpbuf object corresponding to this catch,
4592 which we have just created and initialized.
4594 HANDLER is a pointer to a C function to deal with a throw to TAG,
4595 should one occur. We call it like this:
4596 HANDLER (HANDLER_DATA, THROWN_TAG, THROW_ARGS)
4598 HANDLER_DATA is the HANDLER_DATA argument we recevied; it's the
4599 same idea as BODY_DATA above.
4600 THROWN_TAG is the tag that the user threw to; usually this is
4601 TAG, but it could be something else if TAG was #t (i.e., a
4602 catch-all), or the user threw to a jmpbuf.
4603 THROW_ARGS is the list of arguments the user passed to the THROW
4606 BODY_DATA is just a pointer we pass through to BODY. HANDLER_DATA
4607 is just a pointer we pass through to HANDLER. We don't actually
4608 use either of those pointers otherwise ourselves. The idea is
4609 that, if our caller wants to communicate something to BODY or
4610 HANDLER, it can pass a pointer to it as MUMBLE_DATA, which BODY and
4611 HANDLER can then use. Think of it as a way to make BODY and
4612 HANDLER closures, not just functions; MUMBLE_DATA points to the
4615 Of course, it's up to the caller to make sure that any data a
4616 MUMBLE_DATA needs is protected from GC. A common way to do this is
4617 to make MUMBLE_DATA a pointer to data stored in an automatic
4618 structure variable; since the collector must scan the stack for
4619 references anyway, this assures that any references in MUMBLE_DATA
4622 ** The new function scm_internal_lazy_catch is exactly like
4623 scm_internal_catch, except:
4625 - It does not unwind the stack (this is the major difference).
4626 - If handler returns, its value is returned from the throw.
4627 - BODY always receives #f as its JMPBUF argument (since there's no
4628 jmpbuf associated with a lazy catch, because we don't unwind the
4631 ** scm_body_thunk is a new body function you can pass to
4632 scm_internal_catch if you want the body to be like Scheme's `catch'
4633 --- a thunk, or a function of one argument if the tag is #f.
4635 BODY_DATA is a pointer to a scm_body_thunk_data structure, which
4636 contains the Scheme procedure to invoke as the body, and the tag
4637 we're catching. If the tag is #f, then we pass JMPBUF (created by
4638 scm_internal_catch) to the body procedure; otherwise, the body gets
4641 ** scm_handle_by_proc is a new handler function you can pass to
4642 scm_internal_catch if you want the handler to act like Scheme's catch
4643 --- call a procedure with the tag and the throw arguments.
4645 If the user does a throw to this catch, this function runs a handler
4646 procedure written in Scheme. HANDLER_DATA is a pointer to an SCM
4647 variable holding the Scheme procedure object to invoke. It ought to
4648 be a pointer to an automatic variable (i.e., one living on the stack),
4649 or the procedure object should be otherwise protected from GC.
4651 ** scm_handle_by_message is a new handler function to use with
4652 `scm_internal_catch' if you want Guile to print a message and die.
4653 It's useful for dealing with throws to uncaught keys at the top level.
4655 HANDLER_DATA, if non-zero, is assumed to be a char * pointing to a
4656 message header to print; if zero, we use "guile" instead. That
4657 text is followed by a colon, then the message described by ARGS.
4659 ** The return type of scm_boot_guile is now void; the function does
4660 not return a value, and indeed, never returns at all.
4662 ** The new function scm_shell makes it easy for user applications to
4663 process command-line arguments in a way that is compatible with the
4664 stand-alone guile interpreter (which is in turn compatible with SCSH,
4667 To use the scm_shell function, first initialize any guile modules
4668 linked into your application, and then call scm_shell with the values
4669 of ARGC and ARGV your `main' function received. scm_shell will add
4670 any SCSH-style meta-arguments from the top of the script file to the
4671 argument vector, and then process the command-line arguments. This
4672 generally means loading a script file or starting up an interactive
4673 command interpreter. For details, see "Changes to the stand-alone
4676 ** The new functions scm_get_meta_args and scm_count_argv help you
4677 implement the SCSH-style meta-argument, `\'.
4679 char **scm_get_meta_args (int ARGC, char **ARGV)
4680 If the second element of ARGV is a string consisting of a single
4681 backslash character (i.e. "\\" in Scheme notation), open the file
4682 named by the following argument, parse arguments from it, and return
4683 the spliced command line. The returned array is terminated by a
4686 For details of argument parsing, see above, under "guile now accepts
4687 command-line arguments compatible with SCSH..."
4689 int scm_count_argv (char **ARGV)
4690 Count the arguments in ARGV, assuming it is terminated by a null
4693 For an example of how these functions might be used, see the source
4694 code for the function scm_shell in libguile/script.c.
4696 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
4699 ** The new function scm_compile_shell_switches turns an array of
4700 command-line arguments into Scheme code to carry out the actions they
4701 describe. Given ARGC and ARGV, it returns a Scheme expression to
4702 evaluate, and calls scm_set_program_arguments to make any remaining
4703 command-line arguments available to the Scheme code. For example,
4704 given the following arguments:
4706 -e main -s ekko a speckled gecko
4708 scm_set_program_arguments will return the following expression:
4710 (begin (load "ekko") (main (command-line)) (quit))
4712 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
4715 ** The function scm_shell_usage prints a usage message appropriate for
4716 an interpreter that uses scm_compile_shell_switches to handle its
4717 command-line arguments.
4719 void scm_shell_usage (int FATAL, char *MESSAGE)
4720 Print a usage message to the standard error output. If MESSAGE is
4721 non-zero, write it before the usage message, followed by a newline.
4722 If FATAL is non-zero, exit the process, using FATAL as the
4723 termination status. (If you want to be compatible with Guile,
4724 always use 1 as the exit status when terminating due to command-line
4727 You will usually want to use scm_shell instead of calling this
4730 ** scm_eval_0str now returns SCM_UNSPECIFIED if the string contains no
4731 expressions. It used to return SCM_EOL. Earth-shattering.
4733 ** The macros for declaring scheme objects in C code have been
4734 rearranged slightly. They are now:
4736 SCM_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
4737 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
4738 point to the Scheme symbol whose name is SCHEME_NAME. C_NAME should
4739 be a C identifier, and SCHEME_NAME should be a C string.
4741 SCM_GLOBAL_SYMBOL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
4742 Just like SCM_SYMBOL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
4744 SCM_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
4745 Create a global variable at the Scheme level named SCHEME_NAME.
4746 Declare a static SCM variable named C_NAME, and initialize it to
4747 point to the Scheme variable's value cell.
4749 SCM_GLOBAL_VCELL (C_NAME, SCHEME_NAME)
4750 Just like SCM_VCELL, but make C_NAME globally visible.
4752 The `guile-snarf' script writes initialization code for these macros
4753 to its standard output, given C source code as input.
4755 The SCM_GLOBAL macro is gone.
4757 ** The scm_read_line and scm_read_line_x functions have been replaced
4758 by Scheme code based on the %read-delimited! procedure (known to C
4759 code as scm_read_delimited_x). See its description above for more
4762 ** The function scm_sys_open has been renamed to scm_open. It now
4763 returns a port instead of an FD object.
4765 * The dynamic linking support has changed. For more information, see
4766 libguile/DYNAMIC-LINKING.
4771 User-visible changes from Thursday, September 5, 1996 until Guile 1.0
4774 * Changes to the 'guile' program:
4776 ** Guile now loads some new files when it starts up. Guile first
4777 searches the load path for init.scm, and loads it if found. Then, if
4778 Guile is not being used to execute a script, and the user's home
4779 directory contains a file named `.guile', Guile loads that.
4781 ** You can now use Guile as a shell script interpreter.
4783 To paraphrase the SCSH manual:
4785 When Unix tries to execute an executable file whose first two
4786 characters are the `#!', it treats the file not as machine code to
4787 be directly executed by the native processor, but as source code
4788 to be executed by some interpreter. The interpreter to use is
4789 specified immediately after the #! sequence on the first line of
4790 the source file. The kernel reads in the name of the interpreter,
4791 and executes that instead. It passes the interpreter the source
4792 filename as its first argument, with the original arguments
4793 following. Consult the Unix man page for the `exec' system call
4794 for more information.
4796 Now you can use Guile as an interpreter, using a mechanism which is a
4797 compatible subset of that provided by SCSH.
4799 Guile now recognizes a '-s' command line switch, whose argument is the
4800 name of a file of Scheme code to load. It also treats the two
4801 characters `#!' as the start of a comment, terminated by `!#'. Thus,
4802 to make a file of Scheme code directly executable by Unix, insert the
4803 following two lines at the top of the file:
4805 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
4808 Guile treats the argument of the `-s' command-line switch as the name
4809 of a file of Scheme code to load, and treats the sequence `#!' as the
4810 start of a block comment, terminated by `!#'.
4812 For example, here's a version of 'echo' written in Scheme:
4814 #!/usr/local/bin/guile -s
4816 (let loop ((args (cdr (program-arguments))))
4819 (display (car args))
4820 (if (pair? (cdr args))
4822 (loop (cdr args)))))
4825 Why does `#!' start a block comment terminated by `!#', instead of the
4826 end of the line? That is the notation SCSH uses, and although we
4827 don't yet support the other SCSH features that motivate that choice,
4828 we would like to be backward-compatible with any existing Guile
4829 scripts once we do. Furthermore, if the path to Guile on your system
4830 is too long for your kernel, you can start the script with this
4834 exec /really/long/path/to/guile -s "$0" ${1+"$@"}
4837 Note that some very old Unix systems don't support the `#!' syntax.
4840 ** You can now run Guile without installing it.
4842 Previous versions of the interactive Guile interpreter (`guile')
4843 couldn't start up unless Guile's Scheme library had been installed;
4844 they used the value of the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH'
4845 later on in the startup process, but not to find the startup code
4846 itself. Now Guile uses `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' in all searches for Scheme
4849 To run Guile without installing it, build it in the normal way, and
4850 then set the environment variable `SCHEME_LOAD_PATH' to a
4851 colon-separated list of directories, including the top-level directory
4852 of the Guile sources. For example, if you unpacked Guile so that the
4853 full filename of this NEWS file is /home/jimb/guile-1.0b3/NEWS, then
4856 export SCHEME_LOAD_PATH=/home/jimb/my-scheme:/home/jimb/guile-1.0b3
4859 ** Guile's read-eval-print loop no longer prints #<unspecified>
4860 results. If the user wants to see this, she can evaluate the
4861 expression (assert-repl-print-unspecified #t), perhaps in her startup
4864 ** Guile no longer shows backtraces by default when an error occurs;
4865 however, it does display a message saying how to get one, and how to
4866 request that they be displayed by default. After an error, evaluate
4868 to see a backtrace, and
4869 (debug-enable 'backtrace)
4870 to see them by default.
4874 * Changes to Guile Scheme:
4876 ** Guile now distinguishes between #f and the empty list.
4878 This is for compatibility with the IEEE standard, the (possibly)
4879 upcoming Revised^5 Report on Scheme, and many extant Scheme
4882 Guile used to have #f and '() denote the same object, to make Scheme's
4883 type system more compatible with Emacs Lisp's. However, the change
4884 caused too much trouble for Scheme programmers, and we found another
4885 way to reconcile Emacs Lisp with Scheme that didn't require this.
4888 ** Guile's delq, delv, delete functions, and their destructive
4889 counterparts, delq!, delv!, and delete!, now remove all matching
4890 elements from the list, not just the first. This matches the behavior
4891 of the corresponding Emacs Lisp functions, and (I believe) the Maclisp
4892 functions which inspired them.
4894 I recognize that this change may break code in subtle ways, but it
4895 seems best to make the change before the FSF's first Guile release,
4899 ** The compiled-library-path function has been deleted from libguile.
4901 ** The facilities for loading Scheme source files have changed.
4903 *** The variable %load-path now tells Guile which directories to search
4904 for Scheme code. Its value is a list of strings, each of which names
4907 *** The variable %load-extensions now tells Guile which extensions to
4908 try appending to a filename when searching the load path. Its value
4909 is a list of strings. Its default value is ("" ".scm").
4911 *** (%search-load-path FILENAME) searches the directories listed in the
4912 value of the %load-path variable for a Scheme file named FILENAME,
4913 with all the extensions listed in %load-extensions. If it finds a
4914 match, then it returns its full filename. If FILENAME is absolute, it
4915 returns it unchanged. Otherwise, it returns #f.
4917 %search-load-path will not return matches that refer to directories.
4919 *** (primitive-load FILENAME :optional CASE-INSENSITIVE-P SHARP)
4920 uses %seach-load-path to find a file named FILENAME, and loads it if
4921 it finds it. If it can't read FILENAME for any reason, it throws an
4924 The arguments CASE-INSENSITIVE-P and SHARP are interpreted as by the
4927 *** load uses the same searching semantics as primitive-load.
4929 *** The functions %try-load, try-load-with-path, %load, load-with-path,
4930 basic-try-load-with-path, basic-load-with-path, try-load-module-with-
4931 path, and load-module-with-path have been deleted. The functions
4932 above should serve their purposes.
4934 *** If the value of the variable %load-hook is a procedure,
4935 `primitive-load' applies its value to the name of the file being
4936 loaded (without the load path directory name prepended). If its value
4937 is #f, it is ignored. Otherwise, an error occurs.
4939 This is mostly useful for printing load notification messages.
4942 ** The function `eval!' is no longer accessible from the scheme level.
4943 We can't allow operations which introduce glocs into the scheme level,
4944 because Guile's type system can't handle these as data. Use `eval' or
4945 `read-and-eval!' (see below) as replacement.
4947 ** The new function read-and-eval! reads an expression from PORT,
4948 evaluates it, and returns the result. This is more efficient than
4949 simply calling `read' and `eval', since it is not necessary to make a
4950 copy of the expression for the evaluator to munge.
4952 Its optional arguments CASE_INSENSITIVE_P and SHARP are interpreted as
4953 for the `read' function.
4956 ** The function `int?' has been removed; its definition was identical
4957 to that of `integer?'.
4959 ** The functions `<?', `<?', `<=?', `=?', `>?', and `>=?'. Code should
4960 use the R4RS names for these functions.
4962 ** The function object-properties no longer returns the hash handle;
4963 it simply returns the object's property list.
4965 ** Many functions have been changed to throw errors, instead of
4966 returning #f on failure. The point of providing exception handling in
4967 the language is to simplify the logic of user code, but this is less
4968 useful if Guile's primitives don't throw exceptions.
4970 ** The function `fileno' has been renamed from `%fileno'.
4972 ** The function primitive-mode->fdes returns #t or #f now, not 1 or 0.
4975 * Changes to Guile's C interface:
4977 ** The library's initialization procedure has been simplified.
4978 scm_boot_guile now has the prototype:
4980 void scm_boot_guile (int ARGC,
4982 void (*main_func) (),
4985 scm_boot_guile calls MAIN_FUNC, passing it CLOSURE, ARGC, and ARGV.
4986 MAIN_FUNC should do all the work of the program (initializing other
4987 packages, reading user input, etc.) before returning. When MAIN_FUNC
4988 returns, call exit (0); this function never returns. If you want some
4989 other exit value, MAIN_FUNC may call exit itself.
4991 scm_boot_guile arranges for program-arguments to return the strings
4992 given by ARGC and ARGV. If MAIN_FUNC modifies ARGC/ARGV, should call
4993 scm_set_program_arguments with the final list, so Scheme code will
4994 know which arguments have been processed.
4996 scm_boot_guile establishes a catch-all catch handler which prints an
4997 error message and exits the process. This means that Guile exits in a
4998 coherent way when system errors occur and the user isn't prepared to
4999 handle it. If the user doesn't like this behavior, they can establish
5000 their own universal catcher in MAIN_FUNC to shadow this one.
5002 Why must the caller do all the real work from MAIN_FUNC? The garbage
5003 collector assumes that all local variables of type SCM will be above
5004 scm_boot_guile's stack frame on the stack. If you try to manipulate
5005 SCM values after this function returns, it's the luck of the draw
5006 whether the GC will be able to find the objects you allocate. So,
5007 scm_boot_guile function exits, rather than returning, to discourage
5008 people from making that mistake.
5010 The IN, OUT, and ERR arguments were removed; there are other
5011 convenient ways to override these when desired.
5013 The RESULT argument was deleted; this function should never return.
5015 The BOOT_CMD argument was deleted; the MAIN_FUNC argument is more
5019 ** Guile's header files should no longer conflict with your system's
5022 In order to compile code which #included <libguile.h>, previous
5023 versions of Guile required you to add a directory containing all the
5024 Guile header files to your #include path. This was a problem, since
5025 Guile's header files have names which conflict with many systems'
5028 Now only <libguile.h> need appear in your #include path; you must
5029 refer to all Guile's other header files as <libguile/mumble.h>.
5030 Guile's installation procedure puts libguile.h in $(includedir), and
5031 the rest in $(includedir)/libguile.
5034 ** Two new C functions, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object,
5035 have been added to the Guile library.
5037 scm_protect_object (OBJ) protects OBJ from the garbage collector.
5038 OBJ will not be freed, even if all other references are dropped,
5039 until someone does scm_unprotect_object (OBJ). Both functions
5042 Note that calls to scm_protect_object do not nest. You can call
5043 scm_protect_object any number of times on a given object, and the
5044 next call to scm_unprotect_object will unprotect it completely.
5046 Basically, scm_protect_object and scm_unprotect_object just
5047 maintain a list of references to things. Since the GC knows about
5048 this list, all objects it mentions stay alive. scm_protect_object
5049 adds its argument to the list; scm_unprotect_object remove its
5050 argument from the list.
5053 ** scm_eval_0str now returns the value of the last expression
5056 ** The new function scm_read_0str reads an s-expression from a
5057 null-terminated string, and returns it.
5059 ** The new function `scm_stdio_to_port' converts a STDIO file pointer
5060 to a Scheme port object.
5062 ** The new function `scm_set_program_arguments' allows C code to set
5063 the value returned by the Scheme `program-arguments' function.
5068 * Guile no longer includes sophisticated Tcl/Tk support.
5070 The old Tcl/Tk support was unsatisfying to us, because it required the
5071 user to link against the Tcl library, as well as Tk and Guile. The
5072 interface was also un-lispy, in that it preserved Tcl/Tk's practice of
5073 referring to widgets by names, rather than exporting widgets to Scheme
5074 code as a special datatype.
5076 In the Usenix Tk Developer's Workshop held in July 1996, the Tcl/Tk
5077 maintainers described some very interesting changes in progress to the
5078 Tcl/Tk internals, which would facilitate clean interfaces between lone
5079 Tk and other interpreters --- even for garbage-collected languages
5080 like Scheme. They expected the new Tk to be publicly available in the
5083 Since it seems that Guile might soon have a new, cleaner interface to
5084 lone Tk, and that the old Guile/Tk glue code would probably need to be
5085 completely rewritten, we (Jim Blandy and Richard Stallman) have
5086 decided not to support the old code. We'll spend the time instead on
5087 a good interface to the newer Tk, as soon as it is available.
5089 Until then, gtcltk-lib provides trivial, low-maintenance functionality.
5092 Copyright information:
5094 Copyright (C) 1996,1997 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
5096 Permission is granted to anyone to make or distribute verbatim copies
5097 of this document as received, in any medium, provided that the
5098 copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved,
5099 thus giving the recipient permission to redistribute in turn.
5101 Permission is granted to distribute modified versions
5102 of this document, or of portions of it,
5103 under the above conditions, provided also that they
5104 carry prominent notices stating who last changed them.
5109 paragraph-separate: "[
\f]*$"